Surf's up: why you’d better pay attention to the exchanges which have Bitcoin whales
Holders who own a large number of Bitcoins are typically called Bitcoin whales. The name appeared not only because of the size, but also because of the "waves": marine mammals make noise in а sea, and bitcoin whales affect the rates of cryptocurrencies. Buying and selling of large amounts often change the rate, so volatility is higher during the periods of whales activity. For example, this was the reason why the decline in mid-July was explained.
How many Bitcoin whales in the world?
We can calculate their precise number: bitcoin wallets are anonymous, but the amounts on them and transactions are transparent.
According to experts, there are now 18,000 unique Bitcoin addresses with the balance from $1 million BTC. Almost 40% of them appeared in May-June of this year, during the Bitcoin rally. Probably, large investors were stimulated by oil crises and volatility of world currencies: digital assets in 2020 look as attractive as ever.
Due to the transparency of transactions, it is possible to calculate the number of large transactions (more than 10 BTC). This is exactly what the researchers from the Kaiko Data analytical company did: they compared the number of "whale" deals on different exchanges and identified the leading ones.
First place went to OKEX
The research has shown that the largest trading volume with the largest sizes of whale transactions is registered on the OKEX exchange. It is a Chinese crypto exchange, a subsidiary of the popular OKCoin. Since the foundation, the resource has been constantly included in the top 10 popular exchanges. The reasons are the high reliability of the resource (not a single incident with the theft of funds) and attractive conditions for traders. This is probably why OKEX attracts "whales".
According to Kaiko Data, Binance was ranked second and followed by Huobi.
Conclusion: Despite the fact that OKEX does not describe itself as an exchange for institutional traders, there are most of the large holders of cryptocurrencies here.
Why you’d better pay attention to this exchanges
The attention of bitcoin whales to the exchanger is a sign of its reliability. Therefore, a large number of such users is an argument for choosing this site for your trading.
OKEX also plays a role in setting Bitcoin prices. Therefore, trading on such an exchange can be more profitable due to the greater fluctuation in intra-exchange rates.