Author: Golem
Original title: Don't just focus on Yi Lihua; the actions of these whale during the market crash deserve more attention.
Blockchain has struck again, with Bitcoin continuing its downward trend. In the past 24 hours, it plummeted by over 15%, quickly falling to $60,000, a drop of more than 40% from its October 2025 high, hitting a new low and potentially recording its largest single-day decline since the FTX incident in 2022. Altcoin have been hit even harder, suffering heavy losses. (Related reading: A nearly 20% drop in a single day, how long has it been since you saw Bitcoin at $60,000? )
Regarding the reasons behind this decline, the market has largely attributed it to macroeconomic factors, such as the " Worsh effect " triggered by the appointment of the new Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh, the AI capital race draining liquidity from other global assets , and the escalation of tensions between the US and Iran.
In addition, many unfounded speculations have emerged because the decline was so smooth and almost without pause, and lacked a specific event driving it. Many speculate that a large institution may have collapsed, and a hidden black swan event may soon surface. It's like watching a pile of explosives detonate without knowing who lit it. According to data from Alternative.me, the crypto market's Fear & Greed Index fell to 9 today, entering the "extreme fear" zone, a further decline from 12 the previous day and 16 last week, while the index was still 42 last month.
"The peak breeds false supporters, the twilight witnesses true believers."
It's precisely during moments when "analysis fails" that we can truly see investors ' thoughts through their positions. As we fear a deep bear market, which whale are selling, and who is actually buy the dips heavily at the bottom?
Who is selling valuable cryptocurrencies?
Vitalik and the founder of Aave sold ETH to cash out.
As the market plummeted in the early hours of February 6th, Aave founder StaniKulechov (0x803…c78d) sold 4504 ETH on-chain, exchanging them for 8.36 million USDC at a price of $1855. ETH fell to a low of $1747 in the early hours of February 6th.
Aave founder sells ETH
Besides the founder of Aave, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has also been selling ETH recently. On January 30, Vitalik announced that he had withdrawn 16,384 ETH for a multi-year donation program, focusing on supporting an open, verifiable, end-to-end hardware and software technology stack to protect personal lives and the public environment.
On February 3, Vitalik began selling these ETH, selling 493 ETH that day, worth approximately $1.16 million. As of February 6, the sale of the 16,384 ETH Vitalik planned to donate had reached 42.1%, with a total of 6,899.5 ETH sold, worth $14.15 million, at an average selling price of $2,052. However, Vitalik has deposited the remaining 9,484.5 ETH into Aave, which may indicate that he does not plan to sell them again in the short term.
Yi Lihua, once touted as a "bull of ETH," has fallen, selling approximately 250,000 ETH.
Trend Research, under Yi Lihua, is the most watched ETH bull in this cycle, and he himself often publicly advocates for a bull market on social media. There is a saying in the community: "The West has Tom Lee, and the East has Yi Lihua."
However, as ETH prices fell, Yi Lihua couldn't hold on any longer. On February 1st, according to monitoring , Trend Research, under Yi Lihua's management, began depositing over 10,000 ETH into Binance. On February 2nd, Yi Lihua posted on the X platform admitting that he had indeed been too bullish on ETH too early, and that the profits from the previous top-selling had already been given back. He decided to continue waiting for the market to move upward while controlling the risk.
On February 3, he posted again, saying that he was optimistic about the performance of the new bull market and expected ETH to reach more than $10,000 and BTC to exceed $200,000. However, he recently made some adjustments to his positions in order to control risks.
These remarks may have paved the way for subsequent ETH withdrawals. As of now, Trend Research's publicly disclosed six addresses hold only approximately 396,000 ETH. On February 1st, Trend Research publicly disclosed holdings of 650,000 ETH, meaning approximately 250,000 ETH have been sold, valued at $554 million. Meanwhile, Yi Lihua's latest liquidation range is $1509 to $1800.
But from firmly buying long to being forced to "cut losses," Yi Lihua must have felt helpless.
Over the past 8 days, whale have sold off 81,068 BTC.
Besides these celebrities with publicly disclosed positions selling, hidden whale on the blockchain are also "fleeing." According to Santiment statistics , whale holding 10 to 10,000 BTC currently hold 68.04% of the total BTC supply, a new low in nine months, and have sold 81,068 BTC in just the past eight days.
Following the market downturn, whale began cutting their losses and unleveraging. Monitoring revealed that during yesterday's market decline, one whale deposited 10,128 ETH, worth $20.44 million, into Galaxy and FalconX. Another whale(0xfdd…6a92) holding ETH lending positions on Spark also began selling ETH to cut losses when the price fell to $2050. This whale sold a total of 27,800 ETH, repaying $44.14 million in borrowed funds.
Unlike whale, retail investors are more inclined to buy the dips at this time. According to Santiment statistics, "small addresses" holding less than 0.01 BTC account for 0.249% of the total BTC supply, a 20-month high, reflecting retail investors buying on the dip. However, it is worth noting that this combination of whale selling and retail buying has historically caused bear market cycles.
Who's secretly buy the dips?
Besides retail investors buying the buy the dips, some large investors and institutions with strong convictions are also buy the dips. Statistics show that after the market decline, Bitfinex's margin long positions rose to approximately 77,100 BTC, a near two-year high. This trend indicates that there is still significant buy the dips capital buying the dip during the market downturn. Furthermore, Bitfinex's margin long positions have increased by approximately 64% over the past six months, which is generally seen as a signal that large investors or high-risk-averse funds are continuously increasing their positions during periods of market stress.
Renowned trader Eugene Ng Ah Sio also posted on his personal channel, "Buy when there's blood flowing in the streets, even if it's your own blood that's being shed."
The "buddy"with unlimited ammo.
"Iron Head Buddy" is a prime example of a major investor who long. According to monitoring , in the early hours of February 6th, Machi Big Brother persisted in long during the market downturn, depositing 250,000 USDC into Hyperliquid and opening long positions in ETH (25x leverage), BTC (40x leverage), HYPE (10x leverage), and PUMP (10x leverage). However, the BTC and PUMP long positions were quickly liquidated during the subsequent market decline, while the HYPE and ETH long positions were partially liquidated before additional positions were added.
As of now, "Maji" still holds a 25x leveraged long position in Ethereum, with a position of 320 ETH and a liquidation price of $1841; at the same time, he also holds a 10x leveraged long position in HYPE, with a position of 14720 HYPE and a liquidation price of approximately $31.
This Machi Big Brother Machi closed 11 positions, with 3 profitable trades and 8 losing trades, resulting in a win rate of 27.27% and a net loss of approximately $286,000 for the week. The comments section on Hyperbot was filled with encouraging messages for Brother Machi.
BTC's eternal "backbone" Strategy : Cost price $76,052
Fortunately, Strategy, the largest Bitcoin holder, did not choose to sell during the market crash. Strategy CEO Phong Le stated during Strategy's Q4 financial results webinar that Bitcoin would need to fall to $8,000 and remain at that level for five to six years before posing a real threat to repaying its convertible debt. This implies that only then might Strategy sell its Bitcoin, providing reassurance to the market.
Meanwhile, during the market downturn earlier this month, Strategy purchased 855 BTC for approximately $75.3 million, at a price of about $87,974 per BTC. As of now, Strategy holds a total of...
Strategy acquired 713,502 BTC at a total cost of approximately $54.26 billion, with an average purchase price of approximately $76,052. Therefore, based on the current Bitcoin price of $66,000, Strategy has already suffered a paper loss exceeding $7.168 billion.
Besides Strategy's firm stance of holding and buying, Metaplanet, Japan's largest BTC holding company, also expressed its belief in BTC on February 6th. Its CEO, Simon Gerovich, posted on the X platform, stating , "Given recent stock price movements and the challenging situation facing shareholders, Metaplanet's strategy remains unchanged; the company will continue to increase its BTC holdings." However, data shows that Metaplanet has not purchased BTC for three consecutive weeks.
ETH staunch supporter Tom Lee: The 6.6 billion unrealized loss is just a "minor problem"
From the perspective of holding ETH alone, Tom Lee is clearly more resilient than Yi Lihua. His ETH treasury company Bitmine not only did not sell ETH, but also continued to buy ETH when the market fell.
In the last week of January, ETH fell to a low of $2,200, and Bitmine bought 41,788 ETH that week, worth $96.55 million. Subsequently, on February 2nd, Tom Lee stated, "The company currently has no debt, and given the strengthening fundamentals of Ethereum, the recent market pullback is extremely attractive," essentially indicating Tom Lee's buy-on-dips strategy. On February 3rd, Bitmine bought 20,000 ETH through FalconX, worth $46.04 million.
On February 4th, in response to reports that Bitmine's ETH holdings had suffered a paper loss of up to $6.6 billion, Tom Lee stated that this was normal. However, as of now, Bitmine holds a total of 4,285,125 ETH, with an average cost price above $3,500. With ETH falling below $2,000, Bitmine's paper loss has exceeded $8 billion.
On-chain whale remain bullish on ETH
For on-chain whale, a market downturn also presents a rare opportunity to buy the dips. According to monitoring , a whale(3M4p1i) that had been inactive for seven months began buying on the buy the dips after the sharp drop in BTC on February 6. This whale bought 482 BTC, worth $32.5 million, and currently holds a total of 1,960 BTC, worth a total of $128 million.
Compared to BTC, on-chain whale seem to prefer ETH. One newly created wallet withdrew 55,483 ETH from WhiteBIT in the past two days, worth $115.16 million.
From the evening of February 5th to February 6th, several on-chain whale/institutions continued to buy ETH. According to Lookonchain monitoring, Longling Capital's associated wallet withdrew 8,500 ETH from Binance on the evening of February 5th, worth $17.51 million. The whale/institution "7 Siblings" added another 6,923.85 ETH, approximately $13.91 million, when ETH fell below $2,000 in the early morning, with an average cost of $2,009.8, bringing its current ETH holdings to 318,508.07. Meanwhile, another whale account also spent 28 million USDT to buy 13,837 ETH, with an average purchase price of $2,024, but this whale wallet is also believed to belong to "7 Siblings".
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