In the crypto world there are different types of actors, however Bitcoin Whales are one of the best known. We know that these are powerful investors. What’s more, it’s so powerful that you can change the value of a cryptocurrency if you wanted to, at least in theory. But do you know if the exchanges are the main Bitcoin Whales?
In order to consider an individual or institution as a Whale Bitcoin, it must have a large amount of BTC in its portfolio. Now, if you analyze well, it is the wallets of the exchanges that have the most Bitcoin to their credit. This is for the simple fact that many people store their BTCs on these sites and thus accumulate there.
For example, many of the individuals with the most BTC turn out to be also part of the CEOs or founders of some exchanges. Such is the case for Changpeng Zhao of Binance, and Brian Amstrong, the CEO of Coinbase.
However, it stands to reason that many Bitcoin Whales do not reveal their real identity, so it represents for their safety. For this reason, we have decided to focus on the exchanges with the most Bitcoin on its platform.
Exchanges like Bitcoin Whales
It is evident that linking the two concepts can be confusing for many, but the truth is that in the strict sense of the term, the exchanges would be the largest Bitcoin Whales. The wallets of these platforms have unimaginable amounts of BTC, due to the accumulation of users.
For this year, Coinbase is the largest Bitcoin creditor among exchanges. Secondly we have Binance. The first one reached a million Bitcoins (BTC) in their cold wallets this year.
This is not surprising if we consider that 92% of institutional investors keep their cryptocurrencies on exchanges, according to a study by Binance in 2019.
Additionally, according to Token Analyst, 6.7% of all current Bitcoin supply is held in the wallets of eight of the major cryptocurrency exchanges.
In this year, taking out Coinbase, this is what BTC ownership looked like in the cold wallets of the main exchanges at the beginning of this year.
Analyzing cold wallet storage is not the perfect metric for evaluating cryptocurrency exchanges. But, if it can be considered as an interesting data point that can offer clues about the numbers of users, the trading volumes and the income of the exchanges. Cold wallet storage is also relatively difficult to counterfeit.
conclusion
Thus, we can affirm that the main exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance, being creditors of a large percentage of BTC in the market, are also considerable as the largest Crypto Whales.
However, it is very important that you know that these are intended to store it, not sell it or change it. So there is not much to worry about here. Instead, the institutions and individuals that use the wallets of these exchanges can do so.
