The Bitcoin Market Surge: Unraveling the Mystery of 'Mr. 100' and Sovereign Buyers
A Deep Dive into Record-Breaking ETF Volumes, Mysterious Large-Scale Purchases, and the Pre-Recession Trade Dynamics
In today’s post, I pull on a few strings from around the bitcoin industry. I start with updating volumes and inflows for the ETFs, then move onto the mysterious “Mr. 100”, a buyer snapping up bitcoin in 100-btc chunks. Lastly, I’ll finish up with a quick macro update. Let’s get started.
Bitcoin Products Everywhere Hit Record Volume
Bitcoin product volumes are off the charts. The total trading volume during yesterday’s market melt-up was $7.69 billion, nearly doubling the record from launch day of $4.66 billion. Grayscale’s GBTC volume was lower, while the New 9 were much higher. Blackrock’s IBIT alone had $3.35 billion in volume.
Source: @JSeyff
Net inflows for the ETFs also continue to increase. The net flows (orange line below) ended the day yesterday with $673M, breaking the launch day record of $655M.
Bitcoin Futures ETFs and leveraged ETFs joined the party as well. Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) had its second highest daily volume of $72M, only behind the spot launch day. The 2x Leveraged ETF (BITX) nearly doubled their record volume from launch day.
It is not just a US phenomenon either. Yesterday, the Canadian spot bitcoin ETFs (BTCC and EBIT) both had the highest volumes in 18 months. Same thing for Bitcoin Tracker Euro (XBT) in Sweden, it saw the highest daily volume since June of 2021. Hong Kong’s CSOP Bitcoin Futures ETF (3068.HK) has seen daily average volume triple.
Source: Reuters
We know the ETF demand is off the charts, but is there another source of demand building under the surface?
Mr. 100 and Mr. Snowden
The account @HODL15Captial on Twitter has been following a mysterious buyer they’ve nicknamed, “Mr. 100.” You can follow the address here yourself. The address has been active since November 2022, right before the FTX collapse. Its first big purchase was 10,000 btc at $20k on 4 Nov 2022. FTX collapsed four days later on 8 Nov 2022.
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