Analysis: The whale group in this cycle has shown strong resilience, and an 80% price drop bear market may not occur again.

On October 17th, on-chain analyst Murphy released data indicating that whale wallets holding at least 100 BTC or more currently hold a collective 12.17 million BTC, accounting for 61% of the total circulating supply. The whale holding amount at the peak of the 2021 bull market is similar to the current level, around 10 million BTC, while it was around 10 million BTC at the peak of the 2017 bull market. In this cycle, many old OG players have transferred their chips to new institutions, transforming the market participation structure. Nevertheless, whether the sentiment of whales remains consistently optimistic or fearful will still determine the transition of the BTC bull-and-bear cycle. From 2017 to 2018, after the BTC price reached $19,587 and started to pull back, whales were experiencing daily losses of approximately $1 billion. The continuous, large-scale, and indiscriminate selling left no breathing space for the market, resulting in an 80% bear market that lasted for a year. From 2021 to 2022, the scale of daily realized losses has increased by an order of magnitude. On May 19th, whales suffered a daily realized loss of $3 billion, and during the Luna flash crash, a terrifying volume of $4 billion in a single day. In the previous cycle, the continuous occurrence of daily realized losses exceeding $20 billion basically signaled the end of the bull market cycle. In this cycle, on August 5, 2024, there was a single day of realized losses of $2 billion, the most severe panic sell-off so far in this cycle. In February and April 2025, affected by Trump's resumption of the tariff war, there were single-day losses of $1.1 billion and $800 million respectively, which were much smaller than in August 2024. During the recent October 11th crash, BTC whales showed unusual calm and composure, with a daily realized loss of only $400 million. Whale sentiment and behavior are becoming more stable, and the previous "80% decline lasting for a year" bear market may not repeat.