Retail deposits doubled to $10.75 billion, but giant whales are closing in

According to Woofun AI, BTC funding flows on the Binance platform showed a significant structural divergence: since April, retail investors' deposits have almost doubled to a six-month high, while giant whale accounts have adopted the opposite contraction strategy during the same period.

This difference in position trends is particularly evident in the data. According to an analysis published by CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost on October 25, retail investors' total deposits have risen from $5.5 billion in April to $10.75 billion on a 30-day rolling scale, which is 2.8 times the size of giant whales and $6.95 billion more than the latter.

This statistic uses a 30-day rolling sum to smooth out daily fluctuations. This round of inflows comes as the price of BTC remains above $80,000 for several weeks. Notably, while a deposit is not equivalent to an immediate sale, transferring assets to an exchange often means potential selling pressure, implying that small holders may try to use price rebounds to make a profit. In contrast, giant whales behave more restrained. Since the end of August, the volume of BTC transferred by giant whales to Binance has dropped 36%, from $5.9 billion to $3.8 billion.

Although the $3.8 billion stock is still significant, this only represents a slowdown in growth rather than a complete halt, indicating that large holders have no intention of selling on a large scale at current price levels. This trend is in line with the on-chain dynamics before the September inflation data was released in mid-October: giant whales increased their holdings at the time, then BTC fell 3.3% within 24 hours due to the report, and since then giant whale deposits have not rebounded. It should be emphasized that the above data only covers the Binance platform, and there may be differences in traffic conditions on other exchanges.

The current pattern of fragmentation will test the supply side in the rebound market. If prices continue to rise and giant whale deposits remain low, retail investors will become the main selling force on Binance; conversely, once Giant Whale starts moving back into exchanges, the rebound market will face double selling pressure from these two types of investors. This is a key game point where the microstructure of the market was revealed once again after the impact of inflation data in mid-October.