Any early bitcoin miner (~2009) now has thousands of bitcoins.
Most are Chinese.
Each 230 bitcoins is now $1 million. These “bitcoin whales” are very wealthy.
They would like to reduce their exposure to bitcoin, but the last thing they will do is go to fiat currency — there they will have poor returns and have to pay taxes. In fact, what they would like to do is get their money out of China without the government knowing. So they are looking for altcoins, especially token sales.
Why? Because if a token comes out that will likely go up in value, it’s safer than having all your wealth in bitcoins.
The Chinese are buying any token that looks legitimate and like it has a chance to go up later.
Their hold period is 3 – 9 months or so, they hope to double their money and move on to the next token. This diversifies their portfolio while keeping their reporting and tax obligations to a minimum.
This is in no way a statement that what these whales are doing is a bad thing.