WHALE TRANSACTIONS

How is it measured?

Every transfer on the Bitcoin blockchain spends chunks of coin that were sitting in an address. We take the chunks worth 10 Bitcoin or more and add up what they carried over the past day. The line that decides what counts is drawn in coins, so what counts as a big move is worth more in dollars when the price is high, and less when it is low. This measure is usually called large transaction volume.

What does the line show?

The line is the Bitcoin that moved in chunks of 10 coins or more each day. Its latest reading is 867,069 BTC, worth $72.26B. Both views are drawn on a scale that rises by powers of ten, because the daily reading has run from tens of thousands of coins on quiet days in the early years to tens of millions on the loudest, and a straight scale would press the quiet years flat against the floor.

Is this a count of transactions?

No, and the difference matters. It counts chunks of coin as they are spent, so someone gathering several big chunks into one transfer shows up several times, and a large transfer funded by many small chunks does not show up at all. Read it as how much big-value coin is on the move, not as how many people moved it.

Why read both the amount and the share?

They answer different questions. The amount of Bitcoin moving in big chunks says how active the biggest movers are. The share of all the dollars moving on the blockchain that went in big chunks says how concentrated the day's movement is. Most of the dollars moving on the blockchain go in big chunks: 90.8% on the latest day, and between 90.6% and 92.6% across the six months of smoothed readings. So the share's level says little on its own, and the shifts in it tell you more.

What does the four-year ranking rank?

A fixed level would mean different things in different years, so the reading is set against the days before it rather than judged against a number. The ranking is taken on the smoothed figure, a 30-day average that counts the latest days most, set against the same average on each of the 1,460 days before. It is not the latest day's rank. The two can sit a long way apart: on the latest reading the smoothed figure of 895,820 BTC a day was no higher on 92% of the days in the four years before, while the day's own 867,069 BTC was at least as much as on 79% of them. Each sentence on this page says which of the two it is describing. The busy or quiet word rests on a third comparison: the plain average of the past 30 days against the plain average of the past year.

What makes it busy or quiet?

The word compares two plain averages of the coins moved in big chunks: the past 30 days against the past year. Busy means the past 30 days ran more than 5% above the year's average, and the 30-day average has sat above the year's on more than 60% of the last 90 days. Quiet means the past 30 days ran more than 5% below it. A spike means the latest day landed more than two and a half times the usual daily swing above the past 30 days' average, while the 30-day average had sat above the year's on fewer than 40% of the last 90 days. Anything else reads as steady, including a rise that has not lasted yet.

Does this say whether they are buying or selling?

It does not. A big move could be a purchase settling, a sale on its way to an exchange, a custodian shifting coins into cold storage, or a mining payout going out. The blockchain shows what moved, not who moved it or why. Whether the largest holders are adding to their balances or letting go is a separate read. Open Are the biggest holders buying or selling?.

How far back does it go?

The daily record starts on 1 Jan 2011 and runs to 28 Sep 2026, 5,750 readings. The dollar view covers the same days with the same coins valued at the price when they moved, so it climbs with the price even when the amount of coin moving holds still.

What does it miss?

Two things, in opposite directions. A deal settled on one exchange’s or custodian’s own books changes whose account the coins sit in without moving them, so however large it is, it never appears here. And when a large holder moves coins between two of their own wallets, nothing was bought or sold but the coins still count. So treat the line as a measure of activity with rough edges, not a ledger of trades.