Bitcoin whale Owen Gunden dumps entire $1.3B stack as institutions tighten grip

Owen Gunden, one of the richest early Bitcoin holders, has sold his entire Bitcoin position as retail investors flee the market and institutions continue increasing their share of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

The wallet tagged as Owen Gunden by blockchain data platform Arkham transferred his last 2,499 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $228 million to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken on Thursday.

In total, Gunden’s wallet has sold 11,000 Bitcoin worth around $1.3 billion since Oct. 21, liquidating his entire Bitcoin holdings, according to Arkham.

Gunden’s transactions come amid growing concerns over the end of the bull market, with Bitcoin market conditions deteriorating to their “most bearish” level during the current cycle. CryptoQuant’s Bull Score Index has declined to 20/100, or extreme bearish, Cointelegraph reported earlier on Thursday.

Owen Gunden-labelled wallet, Bitcoin balance history, three-month chart. Source: Arkham

Related: BlackRock leads near $3B Bitcoin November ETF exodus with record $523M outflows

Gunden is the eighth-richest person in crypto, with a net worth of about $561 million according to Arkham’s list of the top crypto millionaires.

Gunden was an early Bitcoin arbitrage trader on exchanges like Tradehill and the now-defunct Mt. Gox. He traded 10s of thousands of Bitcoin on the exchange when it was still operational until 2014, building his onchain wealth.

Related: BitMine sits on $3.7B loss as DAT ‘Hotel California’ meets BlackRock’s staked ETH ETF

Institutional ETF ownership surges

Meanwhile, the institutional ownership of US spot Bitcoin ETFs continues rising to new highs, despite retail fears over the end of the bull market cycle.

The institutional ownership of Bitcoin ETFs surged to 40% on Wednesday, wrote Bitcoin analyst Root, in an X post.

This marks a significant increase from the 27% institutional ownership recorded in the second quarter of 2024, when about 1,119 firms held investments via US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Source: Root

The 40% is based on the latest 13-F filings of institutional participants, which is a “conservative estimate” considering that only institutions managing over $100 million are required to file these reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Root said.

The growing figures indicate that institutions are holding onto their shares, despite the large-scale selling by ETF shareholders, which has resulted in $2.8 billion in outflows so far in November, according to Farside Investors data.

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