Insights
Exchange Whale Ratio
Shows how much of everything flowing into exchanges comes from large whale deposits.
Here's the trend so far. The yellow dashed line is the Bitcoin price.
How to read this chart
The share of exchange inflows coming from the ten largest deposits. Across 12.6 years of history, higher readings have tended to be followed by weaker returns fairly consistently. Readings above 0.7 are mostly from 2013–15, though, so apply them to today's market with care.
New to this metric?
What is the whale deposit ratio? A metric that isolates what whales are doing at the exchange deposit window. Coins usually move to an exchange before being sold, so a rising ratio reads as whales preparing to sell and a low, steady ratio as whales staying quiet.
What is a whale?
A whale is a very large holder. This metric treats the ten largest deposits flowing into exchanges as whale volume. Their impact on the market is far bigger than that of retail investors, which is why they are tracked separately.
Why is an exchange deposit a sell signal?
Coins in a private wallet cannot be sold directly; they have to be moved to an exchange first. So a large whale deposit is often read as preparation to sell. It could also be collateral or another purpose, so it is never certain.
How do I use it?
Use it to watch for whale selling pressure when the ratio rises noticeably above normal. A spike after a big price run-up is often read as whales taking profit. Look at the trend over several days rather than a single day.