이 기사 공유하기
Drop in Bitcoin 'Whale' Addresses Suggests Market May Be Decentralizing
The number of bitcoin addresses holding at least 10,000 coins has dropped to a 14-month low alongside an uptick in lower-value addresses.
작성자 Omkar Godbole
The number of whale addresses, or those holding a large number of bitcoins, has declined to a 14-month low.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
However, the drop isn't necessarily a price-bearish development and may instead indicate the distribution of bitcoin ownership is shifting.
As of Sunday, there were 103 addresses holding at least 10,000 BTC – the lowest since May 2019, according to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The number has declined by 8% over that 2.5-month period.
Ten thousand bitcoin is worth close to $93 million at press time.
Some may see the decline in the whale addresses as a sign of weaker buying pressure and anticipate a price drop as a result. However, Richard Rosenblum, co-founder, and co-head of trading at crypto liquidity provider GSR, suggests otherwise.
“It’s bearish to see the biggest holders reducing their stakes, but bullish to see the market becoming more decentralized,” Rosenblum told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat.
Market shift?
Validating Rosenblum’s comments is the growth seen in the number of lower-value bitcoin addresses over the past couple of months.
For instance, there were 2,155 addresses holding at least 1,000 coins on Sunday, up nearly 3% from a low of 2,097 observed in April.
Meanwhile, the number of addresses holding at least 1 BTC continues to reach new record highs. So do addresses holding 0.1 BTC and 0.01 BTC.
As such, one could argue bitcoin ownership is being transferred from relatively few whales to a large number of smaller investors.
“Over time, you would expect [bitcoin] to naturally dissipate to more hands,” said Rosenblum.
Data limits
Blockchains are transparent and allow every single transaction to be viewed and analyzed. Even so, drawing definite conclusions from metrics such as address growth can be challenging because a single user or an exchange can own multiple addresses.
“Whales may not be having all of their holdings in a single address and moving crypto for risk management purposes,” said Simon Peters, a crypto market analyst at investment platform eToro.
As such, an increase or decrease in the number of bitcoin addresses may not fully represent the entry or exit of investors.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
More For You
알아야 할 것:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
Top Stories
