Bitcoin: Over 178,000 BTC amassed by largest Bitcoin wallets during recent bear crash

Bitcoin gained the attention of not just individual users, but also of institutional investors on Wall Street. The bear market of 2018 brought the price of Bitcoin down from $20,000 to $3,122, affording many Bitcoin wallets the opportunity to accumulate the coins.

According to data obtained from BitInfo charts, the largest Bitcoin wallets are exchange-owned. The richest Bitcoin wallet belongs to Bittrex, followed by Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Huobi and Binance. The balance in these wallets in December 2018 was cumulatively 571,079 BTC. However, over the last two months, their cumulative balance grew massively by 2,879 BTC, which is worth over $11.01 million, at press time.

The next 101 wallets together have a balance of 2,292,153 BTC, which is equivalent to 13.05% of the total coins in circulation. In December 2018, these wallets had 2,114,141 BTC, an increase of 178,012 BTC over two months.

In light of the rumors that Bitcoin has bottomed, many have now started to accumulate coins and hold heavy wallets.

In addition to the above, Weiss Ratings tweeted,

“100 largest #BTC wallets (not counting exchanges) have accumulated over 150k worth of #bitcoin during the last 60 days. They did this most likely to sell at peak and then buy back in at the lower price. Good for them.”

However, the non-exchange wallets, which belong to individuals, have also begun accumulating BTC in the hope of a bull run soon in the offing.

At press time, BTC was priced at $3,880 after it slipped from the $4,000 mark. Bitcoin dominance over the cryptocurrencies is at 52.2%, indicating that Bitcoin is growing stronger with each rally.

@coupleofcrypto, a Twitter user commented,

“I see positive and negative analysis on this. To me whales becoming bigger whales is not good => more manipulation power. At same time whales will want a bull run just as anyone, so we all profit when they decide to kick-start it. I hope volume will be strong enough to last long.”