The Bitcoin dump season among some of the world's largest holders – institutional and individual alike – may have started. One whale moved nearly $500 million worth of BTC Wednesday, just as the cryptocurrency plunged to $60,000.
Whale Alert, which tracks the movements of some of the world's largest Bitcoin owners, revealed late Wednesday that a BTC whale transferred 7,979 Bitcoin worth over $491.5 million from an unknown wallet to Coinbase International.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 7,979 #BTC (491,586,776 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to Coinbase Institutionalhttps://t.co/YtfEQtgM2y
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 17, 2024
Considering the massive amount of Bitcoin held by whales, their every move has been watched closely by the crypto community and each time they transfer loads of their BTC stash, X (formerly Twitter) immediately goes abuzz.
The common pattern in terms of whale movement is that whenever a crypto whale makes a huge purchase of a particular token, the asset's price can climb. On the other hand, a cryptocurrency's price may plummet when the market detects a whale selling or dumping a huge amount of the asset.
The reaction to Whale Alert's post about the crypto whale's movement left many users on the social media platform expressing disappointment, especially at a time when Bitcoin is closing in on its halving event wherein BTC mining rewards are cut by 50%, which results in new Bitcoin becoming scarcer in the market.
"Why are they dumping?" one user asked, to which a Bitcoiner suggested that it could be "to scare retail away." One said crypto observers should remember that whenever a whale makes a huge dump, "the crypto market does not pump on retail, it just dumps on retail."
Another user tried to calm others who rained shocked or sad emojis and mostly frustrated memes under Whale Alert's post, saying the transfer could have been made, so the whale can "load up on your favorite alt[coin]."
Meanwhile, other crypto whales have also been moving around some of their Bitcoin. Earlier this week, several whales transferred a collective $1.2 billion worth of BTC across digital wallets and exchanges within a period of 24 hours, triggering a storm of questions and debates among other crypto users, specifically Bitcoin holders.
Two of the said whales moved nearly half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin, collectively, from wallets to cryptocurrency exchanges.
On the other hand, there were also whales who preferred to "buy the dip," or amass more of the digital currency while prices were low.
Bitcoin has since gradually climbed from Wednesday's $60,000 low. As of writing, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading between $61,000 and $61,300.
