[Context]
The last Quicktake article covered the escalating whale presence on Binance, mirrored by CryptoQuant's (CQ) whale ratio metric. By my estimate, the whale ratio has increased up to 400 percent since summer of 2023.
[40% of Binance’s Inflows Between 10-100 BTC]
Now let's take a closer look at CQ's Binance-related data, and explore the exchange inflow - spent output value bands (%) metric. The largest cohort here is the inflow of 10-100 bitcoins, representing a 40 percent share. Meanwhile, the whale-level cohort of 100-1K bitcoins remains at 20%.
[Whale-Level Inflows Spike in Mid-June]
When assessing the data, we're seeing another phenomenon in mid-June: Whale-level transactions (10K BTC) spiked on June 16th, representing 83 percent of all inflows. This further supports my previous thesis about the escalating whale presence on Binance.
[How to Interpret the Data]
The on-chain transactions in the 10-100 BTC range are typically associated with high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), small institutional investors, or large retail traders. These segments are larger than typical retail transactions (<10 BTC) but smaller than whale transactions (>100 BTC, usually >1,000 BTC).
40 percent of Binance’s inflows in this range suggests that a notable portion of bitcoin deposits are driven by mid-tier investors rather than retail or large whales. This could reflect a more democratized market participation.
[Further Thoughts]
Today, Binance handles nearly 50 percent of total digital asset trading volume and saw $21.6 billion in user fund deposits in 2024, 40% higher than the next ten exchanges combined. The average bitcoin deposit size on Binance increased from 0.36 BTC in 2023 to 1.65 BTC in 2024, indicating growing institutional participation. However, the 10-100 BTC inflow range suggests mid-tier investors still retain a significant role.
Written by oinonen_t
