On-chain data from Santiment shows that Ethereum shark and whale addresses have registered growth of 5.7% over the past year.
Ethereum Sharks & Whales numbers have increased over the past year
This is evident from data from the on-chain analytics company Sanitationthere are now about 380 more sharks and whales on the market than 12 months ago.
The relevant indicator here is the “ETH Supply Distribution”, which tells us about the total amount of Ethereum that each portfolio group in the industry currently holds. Addresses are divided into these “wallet groups” based on the number of coins they currently have in their balance.
For example, the 10-100 coin cohort includes all wallets that currently hold between 10 and 100 ETH. The Supply Distribution metric for this particular group measures the sum of the individual balances of all addresses on the network that meet this condition.
Related reading: Bitcoin accumulation: HODLers buy 15,000 BTC per month
In the context of the current discussion, the investors of interest are those who hold at least 1,000 ETH, meaning the relevant range here would be 1,000 to infinity coins.
Here is a chart showing the trend in the Ethereum Supply Distribution for such investors over the past few years:
The value of the metric seems to have been going up in recent days | Source: Santiment on Twitter
This portfolio range of at least 1,000 ETH (worth about $1.9 million at the current exchange rate) includes two very important cohorts for Ethereum: the sharks and whales.
These investors can be quite influential in the market because they have such large amounts of money in their pockets (with the whales being more powerful than the sharks, of course, as they are the larger of the two. For this reason, their behavior can give hints as to where the market is going). can lead in the long run.
As shown in the chart above, the supply distribution for the 1,000+ ETH range was 6,712 a year ago. Since then, the indicator has been on an overall upward trend and its value has risen to 7,092 today.
This means that 380 new addresses of sharks and whales have appeared on the network in the past year, an increase of about 5.7%.
Ethereum has seen a decline for most of the past year as the bear market gripped the cryptocurrency tightly. Overall, the asset is still down 35% during this period, meaning these giant holders bought while the value of the asset was relatively low.
The chart shows that the main buying wave in this period just followed the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. This suggests that the sharks and whales viewed the lows following this crash as a profitable buying opportunity.
And indeed, their accumulation there seems to have paid off so far as those lows now appear to be the low point for this bear market. These holders have also continued to buy a net amount so far in the current rally, meaning they support the price move. Of course, this could be a positive sign for long-term bullish momentum.
ETH price
At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading around USD 1,900, down 1% over the past week.
Looks like the asset's value has seen some volatility recently | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView
Featured image of Bastian Riccardi on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Santiment.net
