Market "Discount Season": On-chain Data Reveals What Whales Are Quietly Buying?
Original Article Title: "Market 'Discount Season,' What Whales Have Been Hoarding"
Original Source: Bitpush News
Over the past month, Bitcoin has been violently fluctuating around $80,000-$90,000 most of the time, while altcoins have generally experienced a 15%-40% pullback. However, this has been the most comfortable "private accumulation" window for whales. According to real-time monitoring data from on-chain big holders tracked by Santiment and others, whales have been quietly accumulating in the following tracks, with some coins even hitting a new high in accumulation intensity since 2025.
Track One: Payment/Cross-Border Settlement Track - XRP Becomes Whale's Favorite

With the settlement of the SEC and Ripple lawsuit, XRP ETF has also shifted from expectation to reality, further stimulating whale accumulation behavior. In the past 30 days, XRP has been the most exaggerated species of whale net inflow among all altcoins:
- Addresses holding 1 billion to 10 billion XRP have seen a net increase of 970 million XRP
- Addresses holding over 10 billion XRP have seen a net increase of 150 million XRP
- The total inflow of the two types of addresses exceeds $2.4 billion;
- XRP balances on exchanges continue to decline, hitting a new low since 2023.
Track Two: Traditional Layer 1 - Contrarian Accumulation of ADA

Cardano (ADA) witnessed a very rare "whale rotation buy-in" from November 24 to December 4, spanning 12 days:
- The largest wallet holder (holding over 10 billion ADA) started accumulating on November 24 and has since accumulated a total of 130 million ADA;
- Wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million ADA started accumulating on November 26, with an accumulation of 150 million ADA;
- Both groups achieved net increases in a few days, indicating that even though the ADA price is close to recent lows, large holders are relatively confident;
- Whales have a low cost basis, and if the price can break through $0.43, it may rise to $0.52. If it falls to $0.38, the bullish trend may weaken, and the reversal signal may fail.
Three, DeFi Blue Chips: UNI and AAVE Simultaneously Bought Up

· UNI: Over the past week, a whale added approximately 800,000 tokens (worth nearly $5 million), and after the fee switch vote, the top 100 addresses hold a total of 8.98 million UNI, showing strong buying momentum, while the platform's supply continues to decrease.

· AAVE: In the past 30 days, a whale added over 50,000 tokens to their holdings, reaching a total of 3.98 million tokens ATH.
Commonalities between the two: TVL continues to rise + Real revenue (fees) begins to increase, with whales positioning themselves early.
Four, Meme Coins: Overall Pullback, Some Bought Up by Whales at "Discount"
Main battleground:


· FARTCOIN: A single address bought up 32.43 million tokens in 24 hours ($10.7 million)
· PIPPIN: Whales took away 40.45 million tokens in 24 hours ($7.28 million)
· PEPE: In the past 30 days, whale holdings increased by 1.36%, totaling over 10 million tokens. In summary, speculative and institutional capital have entered together, and a violent surge is possible at any time after liquidity dries up.
Five, AI + Data Track: ENA and TIA Most Favorable

· ENA (Ethena): Whales increased their holdings by 2.84% in the past 7 days, with the top 100 addresses adding over 50 million tokens
· TIA (Celestia): Platform supply decreased by 5%, Staking ratio and TVL both hit all-time highs
AI narrative + Modular narrative stacking has become one of the highly certain long-term tracks in this round.
6. Storage Track: FIL vs. ICP
Starting in late November, whale addresses of both FIL and ICP saw significant outflows from exchanges, while the number of active addresses and TVL rose in sync, fulfilling the demand for decentralized storage by AI large models.
· FIL: In the past 30 days, whale holdings increased by over 100,000 tokens, totaling a value of around $50 million; exchange supply decreased by 15%
· ICP: On-chain active addresses increased by 30%, whales withdrew over 50,000 tokens from exchanges; TVL rose to $1.2 billion
Summary
It can be seen that the current logic of whales is:
· Buy the dip, viewing it as a buying opportunity, buying more as the price drops, almost ignoring short-term prices;
· Prioritizing "real revenue" or "policy dividend certainty" tracks;
· Meme coins are still in the high-risk, high-return "lottery zone";
· The long-termism track (AI, modularity, storage, privacy) has been laid out by whales 2-3 quarters ahead of time.
Risk reminder: Whale accumulation does not guarantee a price increase and may also lead to subsequent sell pressure. Please make sure to DYOR, trade cautiously, and strictly manage your positions.
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