Still reeling from a historic price collapse this week, Bitcoin (BTC) received positive news on Thursday after a mysterious whale reportedly reaccumulated a large stash of the digital asset.
The whale managed to snatch up 3,521 BTC over three separate purchases on May 15, 18 and 19, according to the Itsblockchain news publication. The first purchase, on May 15, was for 753 BTC, and came a few days before the now infamous May 19 flash crash. The subsequent purchases, of 965 BTC and 1,803 BTC, respectively, were made as the market was plunging.
The average BTC price for the three purchases were $50,050.54, $44,782.37 and $41,897.02, respectively.
Interestingly, this same whale offloaded 3,000 BTC on May 9 for an average price of $58,503.39.
The same whale reportedly offloaded nearly 12,000 BTC in January at a price of between $35,000 and $40,000 before reaccumulating later.
Market participants monitor whale activity in an attempt to gauge where prices could be headed next. Large, oversized holders of BTC have the ability to influence prices by purchasing and offloading a large quantity of their holdings.
The BTC price briefly dipped below $30,000 on Wednesday but has since recovered nearly 34%. Still, the largest digital currency is 37% away from its recent peak above $64,000. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was valued at $40,217, having gained 3.3%.
Large corrections are nothing new for seasoned cryptocurrency traders, but the size of the recent pullback has caught many by surprise. Peak-to-trough, BTC corrected more than 53% between Apr. 14 and May 19.
It remains to be seen whether the decline has negated the bull market or whether we are in the midst of a 2013-style correction ahead of a major blow-off top later in the year. Four-year cycle theorists maintain that, if Bitcoin repeats past cycles, the current bull market could peak during the fourth quarter of 2021 or perhaps early in 2022.