Sometimes when there’s a huge drop in bitcoin’s price traders called “bitcoin whales” are blamed for dumping on the market. Bitcoin whales are individuals or groups who hold vast quantities of bitcoins and can sometimes sway the market towards their preferential price. These market movers have been around since the early days – ‘shaking out weak hands’ many times over the years – but have also failed their missions at times as well.
What is a Bitcoin Whale?
If you trade bitcoins or altcoins, you’ve probably heard the term “whale” before as the name is used to describe big cryptocurrency holders. The term is used this way because whales are the biggest creatures in the ocean and they can overpower smaller fish with their large size. Bitcoin whales are looked at similarly because their extensive holdings can affect large schools of smaller traders with just a few successful trading methods. Additionally the smaller the market and less liquidity means whales can devastate smaller altcoin markets way more easily than bitcoin. We also assume that Satoshi Nakamoto may be the biggest whale of all as the creator allegedly owns 1 million bitcoins.
Rinse and Repeat
There are many trading maneuvers whales use to profit, like using a trading tactic commonly called the ’rinse and repeat cycle.’ The rinse trade is used in many types of markets and can be effective if timed correctly and very profitable if you are a bitcoin whale. The trader with a lot of holdings starts selling bitcoins lower than the market rate which at times can cause a panic sell off by small-time traders. The trick is the whale sold just below the current market value and just enough to watch panic ensue. Then the whale waits and watches the panic selling take place until the bitcoin price reaches a new low. At this point, the whales quickly scoop up way more bitcoins than they first started with and after the ‘rinse’ they usually ‘repeat’ this type of trade often. People speculate that there are many ways whales can throw their ‘BTC weight’ around to either push the price up or down to accumulate more bitcoins. Further, whales are not just individuals and can be an organization like a bitcoin investment fund as well.