As the number of crypto investors goes up, the available supply goes down.
And ‘Whales’, or investors that own 1% or more of the total supply of a particular currency, play a massive role in influencing a coin’s value – as smaller investors track whales’ investments as a gage for price changes to their own crypto portfolios.
So which cryptocurrencies do whales have the biggest influence over?
Researchers at Coin Kickoff analyzed the 200 largest cryptocurrencies on the market to reveal how much of today’s crypto market is controlled by whales.
They found that:
- 36 of the 50 largest cryptocurrencies (72%) have more than half their stock controlled by whales.
- 98.95% of stock in UNUS SED LEO (#LEO) is owned by whales — the most whale-dominant coin on the market.
- Just 1.15% of Bitcoin stock is owned by a crypto whale — its founder Satoshi Nakamoto, making it the coin least dominated by whale investors.
- Dogecoin has a near 50/50 split between whale and non-whale investors (47.03% owned by whales vs. 52.97% by non-whales).
Here’s a preview of their findings, showing the ownership distribution between whales and non-whales:
The wider study reveals the top 50 cryptocurrencies by whale ownership percentage and the top cryptos by golden whale ownership percentage.
