Arthur Hayes: I bet that Bitcoin will surpass $110,000 before retracing to $76,500

Feb. 3 — Official sources confirm Sky Protocol (formerly MakerDAO) repurchased 130 million SKY tokens in January, spending 8.5 million USDS. Since its buyback program launched in February 2025, total USDS spent on repurchases has exceeded $106 million.

On February 3, analyst James Van Straten cited Glassnode data showing that amid Bitcoin’s price drop, mega-investors holding more than 10,000 BTC—known as “whales”—are the only group still buying, while all other holder size cohorts are selling. Glassnode’s “Wallet Entity Balance Distribution” data indicates the largest whales are in a “light accumulation” phase: since Bitcoin fell to $80,000 in late November 2024, their balances have held neutral to slightly growing, even as BTC traded mostly between $80,000 and $97,000 through late January. By contrast, all smaller holder groups are net sellers—especially retail investors with <10 BTC, who have been selling for over a month. This reflects small-to-mid investors’ bearish outlook on the market and ongoing risk aversion. Meanwhile, the number of unique entities holding at least 1,000 BTC has risen from 1,207 in October 2024 to 1,303. Since Bitcoin hit an all-time high in October 2024, this group’s growth signals larger holders

On February 2nd, major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana staged a mild rebound following an earlier dip on Monday. Notably, Goldman Sachs highlighted that despite weak price performance, on-chain activity told a contrasting story—particularly for the Ethereum and Solana networks: - Ethereum’s daily average active addresses, new addresses, and transaction count rose 27.5%, 26.8%, and 36.0% month-over-month (MoM), respectively. - Solana’s daily average active addresses and transaction count increased 24.3% and 8.2% MoM, respectively. Ethereum hit a new all-time high in daily new addresses: an average of 427,000 new addresses were added daily in January, compared to 162,000 daily during the 2020 “DeFi Summer.” Its 7-day moving average of daily active addresses now stands at 1.2 million—another all-time high. Goldman Sachs also flagged that Ethereum’s current market value is now below its realized value (calculated as the total value based on the last on-chain

Bitcoin has climbed above $79,000 as of Feb. 2, per HTX market data. It’s currently trading at $79,111, with a 24-hour gain of 2.48%.

February 2nd — Citing monitoring from HyperInsight (Telegram handle: @HyperInsight), "Big Brother Whale" trader Huang Licheng has been ramping up leverage on his 25x ETH long position opened on Hyperliquid over the past 10 minutes. As of press time, the position size stands at 1,200 ETH (roughly $2.84 million), with unrealized profit currently at $33,000 — a 29.3% return.

On February 2nd, data from Onchain Lens indicates a newly created crypto wallet has just deposited 3.18 million USDC into HyperLiquid and opened a 20x leveraged long position on ETH. The whale is likely to continue accumulating or opening new positions moving forward.