During a period of market volatility and price corrections, major cryptocurrency investors, known as “whales,” have been actively accumulating positions across several key sectors. On-chain data reveals their strategic focus areas:
- Payment/Cross-Border (XRP): Whales made significant net purchases, with large addresses adding over 1.1 billion XRP (worth over $2.4B) in 30 days, coinciding with declining exchange balances.
- Layer 1 (Cardano/ADA): Witnessed rare “rotation buying” by the largest wallets against the price trend, accumulating hundreds of millions of ADA as prices neared recent lows.
- DeFi Blue-Chips (UNI & AAVE): Whales added substantial amounts of both tokens, with UNI holdings by top addresses showing strong momentum post-governance vote, and both protocols seeing recovering TVL and revenue.
- Meme Coins: While the sector corrected overall, whales selectively bought large quantities of tokens like FARTCOIN, PIPPIN, and PEPE, indicating continued speculative interest.
- AI & Data (ENA & TIA): Whale holdings in ENA increased notably, while TIA saw reduced exchange supply and record staking/TVL, highlighting the appeal of AI and modular blockchain narratives.
- Storage (FIL & ICP): Both FIL and ICP experienced significant whale withdrawals from exchanges, coupled with rebounding network activity and TVL, suggesting anticipation of demand from AI data storage.
The summary indicates whales are using pullbacks as buying opportunities, focusing on sectors with real revenue or policy certainty, treating meme coins as high-risk bets, and positioning early in long-term trends like AI and decentralized storage. A caution is noted that whale accumulation does not guarantee price increases.
Creator: Bitpush Editorial Division
Over the previous month, Bitcoin has principally fluctuated wildly round $80,000 to $90,000, whereas altcoins have typically corrected by 15% to 40%. This has offered a cushty window for whales to “privately improve their positions.” In response to real-time monitoring knowledge of enormous on-chain traders tracked by Santiment and others, whales are quietly constructing positions in the following sectors, with some cash even reaching new highs for accumulation since 2025.
I. Fee/Cross-border Settlement Sector: XRP Turns into a Favourite Amongst Whales
With the SEC’s settlement with Ripple finalized, the XRP ETF has moved from expectation to actuality, additional stimulating whale accumulation. Over the previous 30 days, XRP has seen the most vital web inflows of whales amongst all altcoins.
- Addresses holding between 100 million and 1 billion XRP noticed a web improve of 970 million XRP.
- Addresses holding greater than 1 billion cash noticed a web improve of 150 million cash.
- The 2 forms of addresses collectively noticed an influx of over $2.4 billion;
- The steadiness of XRP on exchanges continued to say no, hitting a brand new low since 2023.
II. Established Layer 1: Investing in ADA Towards the Pattern
Cardano (ADA) skilled a particularly uncommon “whale rotation shopping for” sample over the 12 days from November twenty fourth to December 4th:
- The pockets with the largest holdings (holding over 1 billion ADA) started growing its holdings on November twenty fourth, and has since amassed an extra 130 million ADA.
- Wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million ADA started growing their holdings on November 26, including 150 million ADA.
- Each teams noticed web will increase inside a number of days, indicating that enormous traders have robust confidence whilst ADA buying and selling costs strategy current lows.
- Whales have decrease prices, and if the value can break by means of $0.43, it’s anticipated to rise to $0.52. If it falls to $0.38, the bullish pattern will weaken and the reversal sign might fail.
III. DeFi Blue Chips: UNI and AAVE Bought Out Concurrently
UNI: Over the previous week, whales added roughly 800,000 UNI tokens (price almost $5 million USD). After the price swap vote was handed, the prime 100 addresses maintain a complete of 8.98 million UNI tokens, demonstrating a powerful accumulation momentum, whereas the provide on exchanges continues to lower.
AAVE: In the previous 30 days, whales have added greater than 50,000 ATH tokens to their holdings, bringing their whole holdings to three.98 million ATH tokens.
The commonalities between the two are: TVL continues to get better and actual income (bills) begins to rise, indicating that whales have made early strikes.
IV. Meme Coin: General pullback, with some particular person cash being purchased at decrease costs by whales.
Major battlefield:
FARTCOIN: A single tackle snapped up 32.43 million tokens ($10.7 million) in 24 hours.
PIPPIN: 40.45 million tokens ($7.28 million) have been stolen by whales in 24 hours.
PEPE: Over the previous 30 days, whale holdings have elevated by 1.36%, accumulating to over 10 million tokens. In brief, each speculative and established funds are getting into the market, and a violent surge might happen at any time after liquidity dries up.
V. AI + Information Observe: ENA and TIA are the most favored
ENA (Ethena): Whale holdings elevated by 2.84% in the previous 7 days, with the prime 100 addresses including over 50 million tokens.
TIA (Celestia): Trade provide decreased by 5%, staking ratio and TVL each hit file highs.
The mixture of AI-driven narrative and modular narrative has grow to be one in all the most promising long-term tracks on this spherical.
VI. Storage Observe: FIL and ICP
Beginning in late November, massive quantities of cash have been transferred out of exchanges from each FIL and ICP whale addresses. The variety of energetic addresses and TVL rebounded in tandem, indicating that the demand for decentralized storage from AI huge knowledge fashions is being realized.
FIL: Over the previous 30 days, whales have elevated their holdings by greater than 100,000 FIL tokens, totaling roughly $50 million; alternate provide has decreased by 15%.
ICP: On-chain energetic addresses elevated by 30%, whales transferred over 50,000 cash from exchanges; TVL rebounded to $120 million.
abstract
It may be seen that the whale’s present working logic is as follows:
Pullbacks are shopping for alternatives; purchase extra as costs fall, and pay nearly no consideration to short-term costs.
Prioritize sectors with “actual revenue” or “certainty of coverage advantages”;
Meme coin stays a high-risk, high-reward “lottery zone”;
Large Whale has already positioned itself in the long-term growth observe (AI, modularity, storage, privateness) 2-3 quarters upfront.
Danger Warning: Whale entry doesn’t assure a value improve; it might additionally create subsequent promoting stress. Please commerce solely on DYOR, observe trades cautiously, and strictly management your place dimension.
