Whale Watching

What defines a whale in crypto? Most definitions will zoom in on size and what percentage of supply they own. But the most important characteristic of a whale is the mighty power that comes with holding the most chips. That’s why we should take note when they appear out of the blue:

• Axie Infinity was one of the first crypto games which took off. It rocketed to success last summer but sadly, this proved unsustainable – flaws in the tokenomics and the crypto crash has seen user growth and activity steadily decline.
• This has had a knock-on effect on the native coins AXS and SLP, which have dropped 90% and 99% respectively from their all-time highs.
• But this hasn’t stopped one particular wallet from slowly accumulating SLP. The wallet in question now holds 22 billion SLP out of a circulating supply of 43 billion.
• Michael Benko, a tech co-founder, raised the alarm in a post for Hacker Noon. While he only ran into dead ends searching for ‘why’, the fact that a single wallet holds so much liquidity is concerning.
• Price would be much easier to manipulate. The whale could create a supply shortage, flood the market, or consciously maintain a price point.

Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity is yet to comment. But if they also don’t know whose wallet it is, they may be worried that they could be the target of a deliberate ploy.