Bitcoin Whale Inflows to Binance Drop 44% to $3.9 Billion Ahead of FOMC

Bitcoin whale investors appear to have turned cautious three days before the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision. Retail investors, by contrast, continued to send coins to exchanges at a relatively brisk pace.

Amr Taha, a CryptoQuant contributor, wrote in a report on July 27 that Bitcoin flows into Binance show a clear divergence between whale and retail investor behavior ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Whale investors sent $3.9 billion of Bitcoin to Binance over the past 30 days. That was down 44.3% from about $7 billion recorded on June 12, according to the report. Retail investor inflows to Binance, meanwhile, totaled about $7.8 billion, down just 22% from $10 billion in June. In simple volume terms, retail Bitcoin inflows to the exchange were about twice the level of whale inflows.

That suggests the main source of Bitcoin deposits to exchanges is shifting from whales to retail investors.

The July FOMC meeting is scheduled for July 30 at 3 a.m. Korea Standard Time. As of July 27, the CME FedWatch Tool showed markets assigning a 68.5% probability to the Fed holding rates steady. The odds of a 0.25 percentage-point increase stood at 31.5%.

An unexpected rate hike could push up Treasury yields and strengthen the dollar. In that case, volatility in risk assets such as Bitcoin could surge.