Shiba Inu is facing renewed selling pressure after one of the token’s earliest and largest holders resumed his distribution campaign.
Arkham has indexed a series of large transfers linked to a wallet widely known for accumulating $SHIB during the project’s earliest days. The wallet possesses the tag “$13,752 bought 103 trillion $SHIB,” reflecting his early acquisition of the prominent meme coin.
On Monday, the whale moved approximately 600 billion $SHIB, worth roughly $2.83 million at the time, to the ForwarderV4 wallet, an address associated with distribution activity.
Notably, the transaction came at a time when Shiba Inu ($SHIB) is struggling to regain momentum. The token is down over 18% this month, dropping to multi-year lows around $0.00000453.
Early Shiba Inu Whale Starts Unloading Stash
The wallet in question is one of the most closely watched addresses in the $SHIB ecosystem due to the scale of its holdings. According to on-chain data, the owner accumulated about 103 trillion $SHIB (17.4% of the total market cap) in August 2020, when the project was still relatively new.
At the peak of the 2021 market rally when $SHIB hit $0.0000885, the stash had a value of more than $9.1 billion. Despite the outsized gains, the holder largely remained inactive for years, leaving the tokens untouched while the broader market experienced multiple cycles.
That pattern appears to have changed. Over the last month, the wallet has sent roughly 3.8 trillion $SHIB to addresses linked to distribution activity. This brings the estimated liquidation to over $20 million realized during this period.
A Large Supply Overhang Remains
Before this latest wave, the last time the wallet sold was 6 months ago. The incessant selloffs have raised concern about the intentions of the whale. Notably, such huge sales after years of holding suggest a gradual loss of confidence in the position.
While it has sold a considerable amount of $SHIB, the whale’s remaining holdings still dwarf recent sales. Arkham shows that the address still controls 96.2 trillion $SHIB, valued at approximately $433 million at current prices.
That remaining balance represents a significant source of potential supply hanging over the market. If the whale continues current selling activity, it could further add selling pressure to Shiba Inu’s price.
The selling activity also appears to be a broader market trend. Per CryptoQuant, the total exchange netflow remains positive, suggesting that wallets are depositing more $SHIB tokens to trading platforms than they are withdrawing. Over the past 24 hours, a net of 695.4 billion tokens entered exchanges, signaling distribution as price struggles.
