Is there any surprise about the wild fluctuations and persistent fearmongering in crypto?
Institutional investors don’t want us in this market, let alone near any highly speculative investment, notably trading GameStop (GME) shares in 2021.
A combination of measures, including some self-inflicted ones, is helping the big end of town assert its dominance in crypto.
What’s the evidence? Here you go.
– We’ve seen significant and rapid accumulation of BTC from the 12 spot ETF providers. These now control over 1.1 million BTC, roughly $104 billion, representing 5.4% of the max supply.
– Let’s not forget about (Micro)Strategy, which currently holds ~499,000 BTC, and other companies snapping up as much Bitcoin as quickly as possible.
– The Top 100 ETH wallets hold 70% of ETH’s supply, up from 55.5% a year ago. Out of this, the Top 10 controls 57%, 14 percentage points more than March 2024.
– BTC whale holdings have grown at faster rates than smaller wallets (more on this shortly)
– I even found a scientific journal article documenting the increasing influence of institutional investors in crypto. I’ve included more resources at the end of this piece.
Besides businesses boosting their BTC exposure, let’s not forget about governments at the state and federal levels wanting to be part of the game: Twenty US states have expressed an active interest in buying it, and Trump’s crypto strategic reserve announcement adds to the general expectation that prices will start pumping again.
Let’s not disregard El Salvador either.
You get the gist.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these massive entities saw the urgency to buy as much crypto as possible to reduce the risk of regular people significantly influencing a particular asset (albeit briefly) such as GME.
Before continuing, I don’t have a problem with wealthy people—I admit many of them have worked hard, made sacrifices and taken massive risks to achieve prominent professional and financial positions.
This piece aims to get retail investors to read between the lines and decipher the misleading messaging and market manipulation we’ve witnessed over the years in crypto to flush ordinary people out of the market.
The window of opportunity to make life-changing gains in this space is starting to close, so I’m imploring retail to pay attention, once and for all.
Maintaining the status quo, at all costs
I’ve noticed a major paradigm shift since 2023, when Larry Fink expressed his support for Bitcoin, reversing his previous views on the flagship crypto.
For years, it was seen as a convenient conduit for money laundering, purchasing drugs, and other illicit purposes until the CEO of the world’s largest fund manager (BlackRock) told us otherwise.
His approval appears to have “legitimised” Bitcoin.
To his defence, the average person has had several years to learn about and buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto assets. Google Trends data shows peak interest for “Bitcoin” searches in December 2017, and consistently high traffic in early 2021, well before he officially changed his tune.
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Over the years, I’ve asked and listened to many people in finance about their thoughts on Bitcoin and altcoins.
I put these people into four categories:
1) They had a strong idea that this asset class would be massive, but they put us off from buying because they don’t want the working and middle classes to know about it.
Using some mainstream media outlets to discourage retail investors from investing in crypto would have been wonderful for elites during the pandemic, when many average people were in a fragile psychological state and focusing on dealing with this unprecedented situation.
2) They knew very little about it and took zero interest in it, mostly dismissing it as a scam or, at best, something to stay away from (e.g., similar thoughts to Warren Buffett and Dave Ramsey).
3) They remained neutral about it
4) Acknowledge its potential and recommend having some skin in the game.
Several wealthy investors find clever ways to get us out of the way and snap up assets for a bargain.
I almost left out the fifth category: Bitcoin evangelists, notably, Michael Saylor…
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Financial institutions understand how technology is changing – partly due to the Web3 narrative – and want to ensure they remain integral to it.
Even though crypto helps bypass the need to use these firms by sending money P2P, they’ll find ways to remain relevant.
Banks and similar firms have existed for centuries and there’s no way they’ll willingly accept a (decentralised) system that (potentially) threatens their operations.
Metamask announced a partnership with MasterCard last August, allowing people to use crypto for everyday purchases.
Sure, there’s the convenience and the idea of greater crypto adoption, which have benefits. However, this somewhat defeats the purpose of having crypto as a separate system that can be used directly without an intermediary, which is what Satoshi envisioned.
The same goes for the push to use ETFs (yes, tax concessions as a sweetener, I know), ensuring that asset managers and centralised custodians get their share of profits and assert dominance in yet another asset class.
Then, there’s also kissing goodbye to any anonymity associated with that Ethereum wallet, not to mention allowing Mastercard to profit from millions more transactions and currency conversion fees.
But you do you. I’m all for giving people options. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Having a whale of a time
When examining Bitcoin, ~152,000 of the largest addresses manage 82% of the circulating (19.6M) supply, of which 17,000 addresses control approximately 60%.
Even though we had similar percentages for BTC wallet holdings based on different tiers (e.g., 1 – 10 BTC, 100 – 1,000 BTC, etc.) in January 2018, what stands out is the USD balance per address.
– In January 2018, 19,234 addresses managed over $1 million, and 1,791 were valued at over $10 million.
– Today (March 5, 2025), 131,876 addresses managed over $1 million, and 14,590 held more than $10 million in BTC.
I realise that smaller addresses have also increased in USD terms. However, when you compare the “Addresses richer than” figures, you’ll see a much higher increase in the
bigger BTC bags than the tiny ones.
In short, the rich are getting richer from BTC. Hats off to the earlier retail investors that accumulated when prices were down and are still holding.
To briefly play devil’s advocate, how do we know it isn’t a case of many centralised exchanges holding funds for their retail clients?
Bitcoin exchange reserves. This is the number of Bitcoin held on all centralised exchanges worldwide.
This number has been trending downwards. In other words, people are moving crypto off exchanges, with FTX’s demise being a major catalyst.
Exchanges reserves will (likely) continue dropping as BTC demand is expected to rise and its inflation rate (new supply) is continuously falling.
This phenomenon goes beyond BTC. The wealth concentration is even more pronounced in other assets.
Whale Alert has been tracking activity from crypto whales since September 2018, reporting on massive market movements (often over $100 million in one transaction). You’ll likely see regular posts about this on X/Twitter.
If you want to buy tokens built on Ethereum, Solana, BNB, and other L1s, I recommend checking out Bubblemaps. It shows the largest holdings and connections between different addresses, i.e., clusters, for a given token.
This will help you gauge how much certain addresses are holding. It doesn’t paint the full picture but is a good start.
The last thing I want to see is ordinary people getting shafted and squeezed out by rich people, the ones who are least in need of crypto profits.
Meme coin mania
This is more a self-inflicted problem, much to the delight of the smart money in crypto.
You’ve heard of the typical rags-to-riches story with meme coins: Someone threw in $100 when a meme coin had a market cap of a few thousand dollars to see their holdings balloon into (tens, or even hundreds of) millions of dollars.
If they did it, then you can too.
Good luck with that.
97% of meme coins fail in less than a year; this figure is more like 99.9% when looking beyond 12 months.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: For all the success stories you hear, are there more meme coin failures you never know about, mostly due to shame?
I’ve seen countless instances of people promoting this no-name meme coin, and they believe it will be the next DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, BONK, etc.
“You’ve gotta get in just before the token launch as a strong community is behind it. Trust me, bro.”
Yeah, nah, not interested.
A rollercoaster ride like no other
Market volatility over the years has completely mind fucked retail investors, especially when it’s their first rodeo.
Trade tariffs, DeepSeek and AI stocks falling, the Libra pump-and-dump, the Bybit exploit, crypto strategic reserve announcement…it’s all happening.
The only time I’d be worried is if Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Cardano, or other major L1s were hacked.
Otherwise, keep calm and carry on.
When in doubt, zoom out.
I’ve often made a light-hearted remark about having a safety disclaimer for anyone with a heart condition who might consider entering this space; it’s not for the faint-hearted.
If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Eventually, you become desensitised to all the noise and develop diamond hands, according to Crypto Twitter.
Tying it all back in. The big end of town knows when to embrace these solid opportunities between rapid fluctuations for traders looking to make quick gains and those intent in buying during significant dips (or selling at peaks).
And who’s creating these chances for wealthy investors? It’s usually retail (us), at least our less-savvy counterparts, who are driven more by emotions than facts.
Additional thoughts
Before anyone tries to be smart by saying, “You shouldn’t be in crypto…you should only be in Bitcoin,” note that I’m lumping it all together for simplicity and to avoid repetition.
I’m writing this so more regular investors realise that they’ve been manipulated into believing crypto is a scary investment (thus, they avoid buying any assets) even though the prices keep bouncing back harder than before.
People have chosen to sell for various reasons, including when it’s justified (e.g., profit-taking).
Even many mainstream and financial media outlets have been complicit in discounting or downright tarnishing Bitcoin/crypto’s reputation over the years, rather than remaining impartial and acknowledging good and bad points.
My favourite anti-Bitcoin post is from the European Central Bank (ECB) blog. Why am I not surprised?
Heck, Bitcoin has “died” 477 times. Yet, it keeps on setting higher highs (and lows).
Most media sources have been too risk-averse, myopic, or downright cunning to sway the narrative to favour institutional investors by talking everyday people out of investing in Bitcoin/crypto, or, at the very least, become reliant on these firms.
Focusing on the present, this begs the question: Is it too late to invest in crypto?
I don’t believe it is, but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely to see explosive gains through BTC or even ETH.
This is my stance, in a nutshell:
Investing in BTC and altcoins is risky, but it’s worse not to have skin in the game.
In conclusion, most people couldn’t care less about who controls Bitcoin’s supply, provided they’re profiting from it. While this matters, it’s also important to track wallet trends and who is pulling the strings.
What other tactics have the mainstream media and traditional-finance entities deployed to keep us out of this market that I have not covered? Comment below.
Acknowledgements and further reading
The Modern Investor/Money Rules has discussed this phenomenon (of institutions wanting to control the space) countless times in recent years. I thank him for trying to bring this to people’s attention, albeit to little avail.
Disclaimers
- N.B. None of this is financial advice; I am not a financial advisor. This content is for educational purposes only. You are ultimately responsible for your investments.
- Please do sufficient research before investing in any crypto assets, staking, NFTs or anything promoted by these people and organisations, let alone other products affiliated with this space.
- My opinions in this piece might not reflect those behind any news outlet, person, organisation, or otherwise listed here.
- Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum account for about half of my crypto holdings, followed by Cardano (ADA) and XRP, making up another 25%.