Bitcoin (BTC) buying and selling of whales in 2023 is mostly from speculative investors, new data reveals.

In the latest issue of his weekly newsletter, “The Week On-Chain”, analytics company Glassnode has shown that, contrary to popular belief, the most active whales are opportunistic entities.

The Birth of the Bitcoin “Short Holder” Whale

Ever since the price of BTC returned to $30,000, there has been a shift among Bitcoin traders.

As shown by Glassnode, so-called short-term holders (STH) — investors holding coins for a maximum of 155 days — have expanded significantly.

As it turns out, the cohorts with the largest volume of investors, the whales, also consist of a large number of STHs.

“The short-term dominance of holders across stock flows has exploded to 82%, which is now drastically above the long-term range of the past five years (typically 55% to 65%),” he said.

“Based on this, we can make the case that much of the recent trading activity is driven by whales active in the market in 2023 (and therefore classified as STH).

Interest in trading short-term movements on BTC/USD was evident even before May. Since the FTX crash at the end of 2022, speculators have been increasingly eager to take advantage of both the upside and downside volatility.

The results were mixed – realized profits and losses routinely rose in line with fluctuating price movements.

“If we look at the P/L ratio realized by the volume of short holders flowing into the exchanges, it is clear that these newer investors are trading with local market conditions,” Glassnode continued.

“Every rally and correction since the FTX crash has seen a 10k+ BTC increase in STH’s profit or loss.”

Whales show “increased tidal bias” to exchanges

Closer to the present, whales have increased exchange activity and at one point in July accounted for 41% of total arrivals.

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“Whale Netflow analysis of exchanges can be used as a proxy for their effect on the balance of supply and demand,” he commented on “The Week On-Chain.”

“Net flows between whales and exchanges have tended to oscillate between ±5,000 BTC/day over the past five years. However, during June and July of this year, the whale tide kept the increased inflow between 4.0k to 6.5k BTC/day.

Like Cointelegraph reportedwhales are not the only forces at work when it comes to selling BTC.

Mining Pool Poolin grabbed the headlines for its transactions destined for Binance, while the sell-side activity was also contributed by miners potentially securing profits.

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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading step involves risk and readers should do their own research when making decisions.