Santiment data shows that the total number of Bitcoin wallets registered with a minimum balance of 10,000 $BTC has reached 90, the highest level in 6 months, even as the smallest wallets have continued selling. Bitcoin ($BTC) is trading at around $64,322 at the press time.
The divergence might provide a hint about the next market direction. Large investors are buying Bitcoin while smaller traders are withdrawing from it. According to Santiment, this pattern occurs before major price shifts in the market. Thus, the probability of Bitcoin crossing the $70,000 mark is higher than it moving below $60,000.
Six new elite wallets in eight weeks
Six wallets have crossed the 10,000-$BTC threshold in the past eight weeks, lifting the size of that elite group by 7.1%, Santiment data show.
🐳 Bitcoin’s elite wallet count has bounced back to a 6-month high, with 90 wallets now holding at least 10K $BTC.
📈 This is not a tiny signal. There has been a net gain of +6 wallets holding at least 10K+ $BTC in the past 8 weeks, a +7.1% rise.
🦐 Micro wallet holdings have… pic.twitter.com/c2khTjHsC5
— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) August 10, 2026
Accumulation is also spreading further down the ownership ladder. Wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 $BTC — a group commonly described as whales and sharks — have added about $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin since July 29. At the same time, so-called micro-wallets have been shrinking throughout August.
The discrepancy arises in relation to two shocks that appear to have affected the smaller investors more than the biggest.
A hardware wallet hack and a crypto bill that did not pass
The first shock is related to the Coldcard exploit. Due to a firmware vulnerability that emerged in March 2021, wallets impacted by the vulnerability were deriving the seed using a weak random number generator in the software rather than the entropy chip contained in the device. Therefore, the keys for those who have been affected by the problem had a key strength of about 40 bits, according to information obtained from the TFTC (Terrorist Financing Targeting Center).
Up until early August, TRM Labs reported a loss of $116 million. However, since then, other sources have put the loss figures above $130 million.
The second shock originated from the United States government. The Senate delayed the vote on the CLARITY Act, which aimed at defining the roles of the SEC and CFTC in the regulation of digital assets, until September following the Democratic Party’s opposition to the bill.
John Thune, the US Senate Majority Leader, said, “The Dems are insistent on no Clarity vote.” He then went on to mention that proceedings concerning the bill were “queued up first thing when we come back.” Digital Chamber CEO, Cody Carbone, said the lack of progress on the bill “isn’t the result any of us hoped for” but added that “the fight is far from over.”
Neither event represents a flaw in Bitcoin itself. The Coldcard vulnerability was specific to one manufacturer’s firmware, while the CLARITY delay is a political and legislative issue. But both may have contributed to weaker holders moving coins toward wallets that appear more willing to hold.
New whales or the same custodians
An increase in the whale tally does not indicate the emergence of a new buyer class.
As Cryptopolitan previously reported, addresses concentrated around the 10,000-$BTC level can be related to rearrangements in how large custodians store their balances rather than new capital entering Bitcoin. According to Arkham Intelligence, the largest Bitcoin addresses are usually owned by exchanges, custodians, and ETF issuers. Coinbase, for instance, has control over about 5% of the supply, whereas BlackRock’s ETF is estimated to hold 732,000 $BTC.
Thus, transfers within one issuer from its cold wallets may result in the rise in large addresses without being associated with a new buyer.
The accumulating process is not something new. In January, Glassnode found out that wallets with a balance above 1,000 $BTC increased from 1,207 in October to 1,303 due to retail selling amid a correction. However, Santiment found out in late July that wallets with a balance ranging between 10 and 10,000 $BTC had sold off approximately 70,848 $BTC since late April.
The next hard signal lands in September
The bullish case would weaken if the 10,000-plus cohort starts shrinking again or mid-sized wallets become net sellers over the next month.
The Senate is scheduled to return September 14, with a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act expected around September 15. That will provide a useful test of whether institutional and large-holder demand can continue absorbing supply, or whether the current accumulation trend is losing momentum.
Are larger holders gaining influence over Bitcoin’s supply?
Firstly, the address 14FEEMRhaUwMbhf2rA1cFXmS1Zuk9nc9eq has received 10,306.34 $BTC in a single transaction on June 2 and has performed no outgoing transactions since then. Therefore, this wallet looks like it was just newly funded with more than 10,000 $BTC, but it is impossible to attribute an economic owner based on the information available to the public.
On the other hand, the wallet bc1q7uq3u829ahn22sdlpac0h0lurq3a9yfd3ew69f had a balance of 7,269 $BTC until it received 3,998.9 $BTC on July 17, thus crossing the 10,000 $BTC line. This wallet has received another 628 $BTC after that, and now it holds almost 11,900 $BTC.
This difference is quite important because in the first case, it could mean either a new large holder, a custodian transfer or re-balancing of the existing position. In the second case, one can clearly see that an increase in 10,000 $BTC wallets does not always mean the appearance of a new whale: the existing large holder can just return over the threshold.
Therefore, the Santiment metric on 10,000 $BTC wallets is still quite relevant, but only the number of the wallets is not enough to estimate how many independent investors are moving there.
A closer look at addresses around Bitcoin’s 10,000-$BTC threshold suggests the rise in the whale count is not simply a wave of new investors. At least one address appears to have crossed the threshold after rebuilding an existing large position, while another was funded with more than 10,000 $BTC in a single transfer.
An examination of addresses around the threshold shows why. One wallet was newly funded with more than 10,000 $BTC in a single transaction, while another crossed the threshold only after rebuilding a position it had previously reduced. Neither case, by itself, proves that a new independent investor entered the market.
Are Bitcoin whales preparing for the next market move?
The signal that survives the scrutiny is therefore broader: Bitcoin is increasingly concentrated among large holders. Whether that reflects aggressive accumulation by independent whales, institutional custody and consolidation, or a combination of the two remains less certain.
For investors, that distinction matters. A market in which independent whales are accumulating represents one kind of bullish conviction. A market in which custodians, funds and existing large holders are simply reshuffling increasingly concentrated holdings represents another.
The next important metric may therefore not be the number of Bitcoin wallets holding 10,000 $BTC, but the amount of supply controlled by identifiable economic entities after multiple addresses are consolidated. That is where the blockchain’s apparent whale surge will either become a genuine accumulation story—or reveal itself as a story about institutionalization.
