Bitcoin Whales Outpace Retail Investors Amidst Record Institutional Demand

Retail investors are largely absent from the current Bitcoin market dynamic, but that's not stopping whales and institutions from aggressively buying up BTC. According to data from Santiment, mid- to large-size wallets have been accumulating substantial amounts of Bitcoin, with weekly ETF inflows hitting their highest level since October 2025.

The Woofun AI analysis shows that wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC have increased their holdings by 41,025 coins over the past 10 days, bringing their total to 13.64 million coins, or 67.93% of the total supply. Meanwhile, wallets holding less than 0.01 BTC have remained virtually unchanged.

On the institutional front, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of $2.4 billion as of September 25, with Blackrock's IBIT accounting for roughly $1.2 billion. Corporate players like Strategy and Strive also increased their positions, purchasing a combined total of over 3,000 BTC.

As these large buyers continue to accumulate, the imbalance between them and inactive small wallets will only intensify, potentially laying the groundwork for a subsequent price breakout once the transferred coins are stored in long-term custodial accounts.