The crypto market extended its rally past the $4 trillion total market capitalization, fueled by Bitcoin’s (BTC) fresh all-time highs. This bullish momentum sparked a surge in whale activity over the weekend, revealing a mix of profit-taking, strategic accumulation, and high-stakes speculative moves in large-cap tokens.
Ethereum (ETH) Sees Intense Accumulation and Profit-Taking
As ETH reclaimed the $4,500 support level, whale activity around the token intensified:
- Buying/Accumulation: Major wallets were in accumulation mode. A new address (0x982) acquired 26,029 ETH (worth $116.8M) from Kraken. Another whale bought 7,311 ETH using $33 million in USDC, which they then supplied to Aave for lending.
- Selling/Profit-Taking: Large holders capitalized on the rally. “Trend Research” transferred a massive 77,491 ETH (worth $354.5M) to Binance, bringing their total offloaded amount since October to roughly $642 million. Additionally, several long-dormant “old-guard” whales moved funds to exchanges, including one who deposited 4,500 ETH ($20.4M) to Kraken after two years of inactivity.
- Speculative Trading: One whale executed a high-risk trade by selling 1,001 ETH and immediately opening a 15x leveraged long position on 15,023 ETH, signaling strong confidence in a near-term price spike.
Bitcoin (BTC) Deposits Offset by Institutional Demand
Bitcoin’s surge past $125,000 prompted significant profit-taking:
- Selling: A large wallet (3NVeXm) transferred 1,550 BTC (worth $193.75M) to Binance right after the new price peak, alongside a $30.1 million transfer from an address linked to Alameda Research.
- Institutional Buying: Despite the selling, institutional interest remained robust. 14 public companies increased their BTC reserves over the past week. The largest additions came from Metaplanet (5,268 BTC), followed by Marathon Digital and CleanSpark. The top 100 public companies now collectively hold over 1 million BTC.
Altcoins (ASTER, ODO, and LINK) Show Broad Market Engagement
Whale activity extended beyond the top two tokens:
- A whale acquired 1.69 million ASTER tokens (worth $3.14M).
- A Gnosis Safe Proxy wallet moved 11.67 million ONDO ($10.87M) to exchanges, with a portion going into Arthur Hayes’ Bybit deposit address, indicating potential profit-taking.
- Another whale deposited 700,000 LINK (worth $15.52M) to Binance.
Overall, the weekend’s large-wallet moves show that the crypto rally is driven by both long-term accumulation in anticipation of further upside and strategic profit-taking at recent highs, all while institutional demand for BTC remains a strong underlying support.
Octobere 2025, Cryptoniteuae
