Whales are entities – individuals, institutions and exchanges – that hold significant amounts of tokens of a particular cryptocurrency. As a rule, “Сrypto Whales” are investment and hedge funds – large players whose power allows you to manipulate the price of tokens. On the other hand, “Bitcoin whales” are considered accounts that store 1,000 or more Bitcoins.
Whales are able to manipulate the market in their favor because their actions directly affect market dynamics. When they put tokens up for sale, the price of these tokens decreases sharply. Conversely, they can cause prices to rise. To do this, they only need to keep their own assets, thus reducing supply.
The Telegraph recently discovered that the top 40% of all bitcoin (approximately $240 billion) is held by just under 2,500 known accounts, out of roughly 100 million in total. Some whales are well known, such as some large funds and people with the lion’s share of coins.