Non-Whale Bitcoin Investors Break New BTC Accumulation Record

by · December 6, 2022

Some non-whale Bitcoin (BTC) investors seem to have had zero issues with the cryptocurrency bear market, as well as the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) surrounding the fall of FTX, on-chain data suggests.

Smaller retail investors have become increasingly bullish on Bitcoin and started accumulating more BTC despite the ongoing market crisis, according to a report released by the blockchain intelligence platform Glassnode on November 27.

According to the data, there are at least two types of retail Bitcoin investors who have accumulated the record amount of BTC after the collapse of FTX.

The first type of investors – classified as shrimp – defines entities or investors who hold less than 1 Bitcoin, $16,500 at the time of writing, while the second type – crabs – is an address category that holds up to 10 BTC, $165,000 at the time of writing .

“Shrimp” investors reportedly added 96,200 BTC ($1.6 billion) to their portfolios following the FTX crash in early November, an “all-time high balance increase.” These types of investors hold a total of 1.21 million BTC, or $20 billion at the time of writing, which equates to 6.3% of the current circulating supply of 19.2 million coins, according to Glassnode.

Meanwhile, “crabs” have bought about 191,600 BTC, or $3.1 billion, over the past 30 days, which is also a “compelling all-time high,” the analysts said. According to the data, the new milestone has broken a previous high BTC accumulation recorded by crabs in July 2022 at the peak of 126,000 BTC, or $2 billion, purchased per month.

Bitcoin net position change for addresses with up to 10 BTC. Source: Glassnode

While crabs and shrimp have accumulated record amounts of Bitcoin, major Bitcoin investors have been selling. According to Glassnode, Bitcoin whales have released about 6,500 BTC, or $107 million, to exchanges in the past month, which is still a very small portion of their total holdings of 6.3 million BTC, $104 billion.

The behavior of shrimp and crabs appears to be interesting given recent industry events, with Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange becoming the subject of a massive industry scandal involving alleged fraud and misappropriation of funds.

On the other hand, some major Bitcoin investors have claimed to remain bullish on Bitcoin despite the ongoing crisis, with the government of El Salvador starting to buy BTC on a daily basis, starting November 17th. Twitter CEO Elon Musk also expressed confidence that Bitcoin “will pull through” despite the current industry woes, but it could be a “long crypto winter,” he said.

Related: Currency flows hit historic highs as Bitcoin investors took over

In the wake of FTX’s fall, Bitcoin immediately lost around $6,000 of its value, plunging from around $21,000 below $16,000 in mid-November. The cryptocurrency has recovered a bit over the past few weeks and cannot go higher than $17,000.

At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $16,500, or up about 1.7% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.