Bitcoin Wallets Often Follow Whale Alerts According to Preliminary Study

A preliminary study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that Bitcoin (BTC) wallet activity tends to move in the same direction as large transactions shortly after public whale alerts. The analysis, which covered Whale Alert notifications from December 14, 2017, through December 31, 2025, examined 5,884 Bitcoin events, including 3,471 buys and 2,413 sells.

The research showed that in the 15 minutes following alerts for large Bitcoin purchases, the share of medium-sized wallets actively buying increased by 23.72 percentage points compared to the preceding 15-minute window. Smaller wallets saw a 14.81-point increase, while large wallets had a 3.50-point rise. Conversely, after large-sell alerts, selling activity surged by 29.52 points among medium-sized wallets, 12.95 points among small wallets, and 2.95 points among large wallets.

The study defined a whale as a wallet that made at least one transfer worth more than $50 million during the sample period. It excluded exchange and smart-contract wallets from the wallet-size groups and sorted other wallets by transaction-size percentiles within six-month periods. The research noted that on-chain data does not reliably link wallets to individual investors, as one person may use multiple wallets.

Ethereum showed no broad immediate directional response to these alerts. The findings suggest a connection between alert timing and wallet activity but do not confirm that traders acted because of the alerts or that trading in the same direction as large wallets was profitable. The research is preliminary and was circulated for discussion.