The number of Bitcoin wallets holding 100 BTC or more has just hit a remarkable 17-month high. According to blockchain analytics platform Santiment, this surge was propelled by a notable increase in whale holdings over the past month.

In an X post on August 31, Santiment shared that over 283 wallets holding at least 100 BTC emerged within the past month alone. With this addition, “16,120 such wallets on the network has broken a 17-month high,” Santiment said.

Impatient Sale

Santiment attributed the increase in whale holdings to small traders “impatiently” dumping their holdings to the bigger players amid the recent price dips.

“As crypto prices have let retail traders down, Bitcoin whales are growing in number,” the analysts said.

In a separate post, crypto analyst Axel Adler noted that traders might be offloading due to the pressure of not risking selling below their entry point.

“For exactly one month, short-term holders (1 to 3 months) have been trading at a loss. In the current bull market, the metric has not fallen below 17%, the current figure is -8%. If it continues to decline, the number of people willing to sell coins at a loss could double,” he said on X.

Buying the Dip

Santiment also revealed that wallets with at least 10 BTC (known as sharks) are also stacking up more of the asset. According to the analytics platform, whales and sharks have collectively scooped up 133,000 BTC (worth approximately $7.6 billion) over the last 30 days. In contrast, the analyst added that small traders are dumping their holdings amid short-term price weakness.

Meanwhile, Vivek Sen, the founder of Bigrow Lab, pointed to a historical pattern between increased whale activity and the price of bitcoin. He noted that BTC hit a new peak the last time whales accumulated much of the digital asset.

However, the increase in whale activity has yet to impact the price of BTC. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading close to $59,000, representing an 8% decline over the past week.