According to TechFlow, on December 26, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju wrote, “Whales are accumulating Bitcoin through private transactions. The average annual number of CoinJoin transactions has tripled in the past two years. Although some attribute this surge to money laundering by hackers, the Chainalysis report shows that the total hacker losses this year are $2.2 billion, accounting for only 0.5% of the $377 billion market value inflow of Bitcoin.
In 2024, 1.55 million BTC flowed into accumulation addresses, mainly related to ETFs, MicroStrategy, and custodial wallets. Whales often transfer funds to emerging institutional investors through privacy transactions. In addition to the disclosed holdings, the identities of the accumulators of about 240,000 to 420,000 BTC remain unknown. Who are these whales? "
