A Bitcoin whale sold BTC for $12,000 after 2 years of HODL

A Bitcoin whale (BTC), an individual investor who owns a large amount of BTC, cashed in the profits after two years of waiting. According to Whalemap data, the whale purchased a total of nearly 9,000 BTC in the third quarter of 2018.

The pseudonym trader known as „Byzantine General“, who shared the data, commented:

„This whale is a legend. See that big bubble around $6,000 in 2018? That’s almost 9,000 BTC accumulated in that area. It finally cashed the profits, after 2 years and 2 big capitulation events“.

The whale has held the BTCs for almost 22 months, going through two major capitulation phases. Bitcoin collapsed to levels below $4,000 on two occasions, in January 2019 and March 2020. The investor passed both periods, and eventually sold for about $12,000.

What does the sale of Bitcoin by a whale suggest?

On August 16, Cointelegraph reported that within the range between $12,000 and $14,000 there are large clusters of whale. At the $12,000 level, many whales are in profit or breakeven, so they may have an incentive to sell.

It remains to be clarified whether this indicates that whales see the price level as a local peak. Because of the large size of their positions, these investors follow liquidity. If they believe there is enough liquidity to sell, possibly due to an increase in retail activity, they will be inclined to do so.

Therefore, the sell-off of a whale does not necessarily indicate a peak for the Bitcoin Freedom price. Instead, it could be assumed that it increases the likelihood of consolidation in the short term, but it is premature to announce a local maximum until BTC falls below its key support levels. Also, it is difficult to estimate how much the whale has sold of its 9,000 BTC.

One reason why some whales seem inclined to sell around these levels might be Bitcoin’s relatively high spot volume. According to another pseudonym trader, Bitcoin Jack, the market remains „strangely“ driven by the spot:

„For now, BTC’s market remains strangely ad driven. We can see a relatively high on-chain domain. The price expansion is therefore again imminent, uncertain direction but low derivatives vs. spot and exchange spot vs. domain on-chain indicate that it was not an irrational maximum“.

When the price is driven strongly by the derivatives market, whales have less liquidity available, and light pullbacks can cause large price movements.