Bitcoin-stacking firms BlackRock and MARA Holdings bought a combined 9,173 Bitcoin while an unknown whale scooped up 600 Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency’s price fell to $92,957 on Dec. 5.
BlackRock bought a whopping 7,750 Bitcoin (BTC) as buyers scooped up shares of its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, taking the firm’s total Bitcoin holdings to $48.9 billion at current prices, Arkham data shows.
“Fastest growing ETF EVER,” said Thomas Fahrer, founder of crypto markets firm Apollo, which tracks the spot Bitcoin ETF market.
Source: Thomas Fahrer
Meanwhile, Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings bought 1,423 Bitcoin — worth $139.5 million — across four transactions Dec. 5 and 6, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain noted on X.
The Bitcoin purchases followed the closing of MARA’s second $850 million convertible note offering, which it said it would use to accumulate more Bitcoin.
MARA now holds 22,108 Bitcoin worth $2.17 billion, Arkham Intelligence data shows. It marks a massive 162% increase from this time last month.
In the third quarter, MARA shifted to a new treasury policy to “retain all” Bitcoin it mines and adopt a range of capital market instruments to bolster its Bitcoin reserves, similar to MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin playbook.
Meanwhile, an anonymous crypto whale seems to have also taken advantage of Bitcoin’s price slump on Dec. 5, snaring 600 Bitcoin worth almost $58.9 million, Lookonchain noted in a separate X post.
No Bitcoin was held in the whale’s wallet address — bc1pg…u0pk3 — until its first transaction on Nov. 24, BitInfoCharts data shows.
Related: Bitcoin price will hit $1M, but at what cost? — Michaël van de Poppe
Just a day earlier, health-care tech firm Semler Scientific bought another 303 Bitcoin at an average price of $96,779 on Dec. 4 — several hours before Bitcoin surpassed the $100,000 milestone.
The firm’s latest purchase increased its Bitcoin holdings to 1,873 Bitcoin, worth $182.8 million.
Bitcoin-stacking firms like Semler Scientific hold a combined 527,026 Bitcoin, representing 2.66% of Bitcoin’s current supply, according to the 67 public firms tracked by BitcoinTreasuries.
Top 10 largest public-listed Bitcoin holders. Source: BitcoinTreasuries
Governments hold 2,856 Bitcoin, while asset management firms and private firms hold 1,253 Bitcoin and 410,418 Bitcoin, respectively.
Bitcoin was trading at $97,580 at the time of writing, down 4.9% over the previous 24 hours.
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