Altcoins
Whales scoop up MATIC in large numbers – A sign of confidence?
Large crypto whales bagged more than 120 million MATIC tokens in just the past week, worth $91 million at the prevailing market rate.
- Retail investors also exhibited interest.
- Demand for MATIC was growing because of the spike in on-chain transactions.
Whale investors have set their sight on Polygon’s MATIC token. Transactions worth more than $1 million in MATIC surged significantly in November, AMBCrypto analyzed using Santiment’s data.
Such a sustained period of trading activity by large crypto whales has not been observed over the last year.
Whales create waves
The transactions were driven by accumulators, evidenced by an 18.31% rise in MATIC’s value in the last 30 days.
In fact, these influential investors bagged more than 120 million MATIC tokens in just the past week, as per popular on-chain sleuth Ali Martinez.
At MATIC’s prevailing market price of $0.7643, the purchased value was worth more than $91 million.
#Polygon | Recently, $MATIC whales have been on a buying spree, scooping up over 120 million #MATIC in the past week – that's a hefty $90 million investment! pic.twitter.com/uqXopGoqvy
— Ali (@ali_charts) November 29, 2023
When whales make moves, they generate waves. This popular adage is often used in crypto circles to emphasize the importance of investors sitting on large stashes of digital assets.
Any transaction from a crypto whale can therefore affect the supply, demand, and subsequently the value of the asset.
Moreover, the accumulation reflected a sense of confidence in MATIC’s near-term growth outlook.
Having said that, it wasn’t just the whales who increased their appetite for MATIC. Retail investors, holding a much smaller number of coins, also exhibited interest.
According to AMBCrypto’s scrutiny of Santiment’s data, the user cohort having between 0.1 and 10 MATICs in their wallets grew steadily in November.
While they don’t influence price movements massively, growing demand amongst retail investors was a sign of mainstream adoption.
Transactions on Polygon PoS rise
The immediate catalyst for the increased demand wasn’t clear as of this writing. Although, AMBCrypto observed a significant uptick in on-chain trading activity, using Token Terminal’s data.
As shown, daily transactions spiked 68% over the past week, and 113% in the last 30 days.
Since the fees on the network are paid in MATIC, the increased utilization was bound to create a wave of demand for the layer 2 (L2) token. This might have excited whale investors.
Read MATIC’s Price Prediction 2023-24
Here’s the catch
While the exteriors looked rosy, an element of doubt remained in the minds of investors. A previous report by AMBCrypto delved into the claims of MATIC’s rise not being organic.
Instead, it was claimed that not MATIC holders but accumulation of coins by exchanges was driving the surge.