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Non-Whale Bitcoin Buyers Set New Milestone For BTC Accumulation
According to on-chain statistics, some non-whale Bitcoin investors seem to have had no issues with the cryptocurrency bear market or the uncertainty, fear, and doubt (FUD) surrounding the demise of FTX. A report published by the blockchain intelligence platform Glassnode also confirms that smaller retail investors have grown more enthusiastic about Bitcoin and have begun amassing more BTC.
The data indicate that at least 2 categories of retail Bitcoin investors have been accumulating a record number of BTC since FTX’s demise. The first type of investors, Shrimp, are those who possess less than one Bitcoin, which is valued at $16,500 at the time of writing. The second type, Crab investors, are those with up to ten Bitcoins, valued at $165,000 at the time of writing.
After the FTX crisis in early November, “Shrimp” investors have reportedly enhanced their portfolios with 96,200 BTC ($1,6 billion), which is an “all-time high balance increase.” Glassnode clarifies that this group of investors has 1.21 million BTC, or $20 billion, equal to 6.3% of the 19.2 million coins in circulation. Analysts reveal that “crabs” have purchased around 191,600 BTC, or $3.1 billion, over the previous 30 days, which is also a “convincing all-time high.” The new milestone exceeded the previous BTC accumulation record established by crabs in July 2022, when 126,000 BTC, or $2 billion, were purchased each month at its peak.
While huge Bitcoin investors have been selling, crabs and shrimp have been acquiring record quantities of Bitcoin. Glassnode reports that Bitcoin whales have given up roughly 6,500 BTC, or $107 million, to exchanges during the previous month. This is still a relatively minor amount of their overall holdings of 6.3 million BTC, or $104 billion. Recent market developments, including Sam Bankman-cryptocurrency Fried’s exchange, are the focus of a noteworthy industry crisis including allegations of fraud and money laundering. The behavior of shrimp and crabs seems particularly noteworthy.
However, despite the current problem, several significant Bitcoin investors claim to remain positive on the currency, particularly now that El Salvador’s government has begun buying Bitcoin every day since November 17. Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, also stated that Bitcoin “will make it” despite the challenges facing the sector now, although he warned that there may be a “long crypto winter.”
After the FTX’s demise, Bitcoin instantly dropped roughly $6,000 in value, falling from about $21,000 to about $16,000 in mid-November. Over the past two weeks, the cryptocurrency has been creeping up, but only to a maximum of $17,000.
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US Attorney’s Office Seizes Billions of Bitcoins Associated With Silk Road
According to a report released on Monday by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the dark web marketplace Silk Road was connected to more than $3.36 billion worth of Bitcoin. Following James Zhong’s Friday guilty plea to one count of wire fraud, who was in charge of receiving the 50,676 Bitcoin in September 2012, the US Attorney’s Office made the disclosure. One Bitcoin was valued at about $10 ten years ago.
The only larger Bitcoin seizure in DOJ history, which ranks second, was the recovery of 94,000 stolen coins during the 2016 Bitfinex attack. Those coins were valued at around $3.6 billion when they were recovered. The maximum sentence for Zhong’s alleged offense is 20 years in jail.
“For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery,” stated U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. The lawyer said that law enforcement discovered the funds by employing “cryptocurrency tracing” and “good old-fashioned police work.”
Zhong is accused of using a trading strategy in September 2012 to steal Bitcoin from Silk Road without selling or purchasing any genuine goods from its marketplace. Before its inventor, Ross Ulbricht, was given a life sentence in jail in 2015. At that time, the black market was widely used for trading illegal narcotics and other products. The DOJ alleges that Zhong deceived Silk Road’s withdrawal processing system into releasing 50,000 bitcoin into his several accounts by swiftly initiating over 140 back-to-back transactions while remaining anonymous.
By hanging onto his previously stolen Bitcoin five years later, Zhong purportedly also acquired an equivalent sum of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), a hard-forked form of Bitcoin intended for increased scalability. According to the DOJ’s statement, he sold that BCH at a foreign cryptocurrency exchange for an additional 3,500 Bitcoin. Even though Bitcoin addresses are essentially anonymous, every transaction is tracked on its widely accessible blockchain. Intelligence services can thus use sophisticated methods to determine the origin of such coins.
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