Non-Whale Bitcoin Investors Break New BTC Accumulation Record

Bitcoin addresses holding up to 10 BTC have been accumulating huge amounts of BTC in the wake of the FTX collapse.

Some of these non-whale investors seem to have had zero issues with the crypto bear market together with fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) around the implosion of FTX, on-chain data indicates.

Small retail investors have turned majorly bullish on Bitcoin and started accumulating more Bitcoin despite the current market crisis, based on a report published by the blockchain intelligence platform Glassnode on November 27.

Based on the data, over two types of retail BTC investors have been slowly accumulating a record amount of Bitcoin after the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.

The first type of investors – referred to as shrimps – define the entities and investors that hold less than 1 Bitcoin, $16,900 at the time of publication, while the second type – crabs – fall within the category of addresses that hold up to 10 BTC, $165,000 at the time of publication.

These ‘Shrimp’ investors have allegedly added 96,200 BTC to their portfolios worth $1.6 billion after the FTX crash in early November. That represents an all-time high balance increase. This group of investors cumulatively holds 1.21 million BTC valued at nearly $20.5 billion at the time of writing. The amount represents 6.3% of the current circulating supply of 19.2 million coins, based on data published by Glassnode.

Meanwhile, ‘crabs’ have purchased nearly 191,600 BTC worth $3.1 billion in the last 30 days, which also represents a “convincing all-time-high,” according to market analysts. Based on the available data, the new milestone has broken a previous high of BTC accumulation recorded by the Crabs in July 2022 at the peak of 126,000 BTC, worth $2 billion, bought per month.

While the shrimps and the crabs have been accumulating record amounts of BTC, large Bitcoin investors have been selling. Based on Glassnode, Bitcoin whales have offloaded around 6,500 BTC ($107 million) to exchanges in the last 30 days, which remains a small segment of their total holdings of 6.3 million BTC worth $105 billion.

The interesting behavior of crabs and shrimps appears to be incredible given the latest industry events, with Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange becoming a subject of a huge industry scandal involving supposed fraud and funds misappropriation.

On the flip side, some of the big Bitcoin investors have managed to keep bullish on the flagship crypto despite the current crisis, with the government of El Salvador beginning to buy BTC daily from November 17. Twitter CEO Elon Musk also expressed confidence that Bitcoin ‘will make it’ despite the current sector challenges, but also said that there might be a ‘long crypto winter.’

In the wake of the collapse of the FTX exchange, Bitcoin instantly lost nearly $6,000 of its value, plunging from over $21,000 to below $16,000 in mid-November. The crypto has since been slightly recovering over the last several weeks, edging up to not more than $17,150.

At the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $16,900 according to data published by CoinGecko.