AltcoinsMarkets
|5 min ReadWhales Buy The Dip As Altcoin Liquidity Thins Out
Lucca Menezes
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
Bitcoin’s range between eighty and ninety thousand dollars created the perfect smokescreen for deep pockets. Retail saw volatility and fear. Whales saw cheaper inventory. Across payments, legacy Layer 1s, DeFi revenue names, AI-infrastructure tokens, storage plays, and even selective meme coins, accumulation increased while exchange balances thinned out. The flows show a market where long-term positioning continued even as short-term sentiment sagged.
Payments Infrastructure Leads As XRP Pulls In Fresh Capital
Whale demand for XRP accelerated after regulatory risk faded and the ETF narrative turned into reality. Data shows heavy accumulation across multiple large holder cohorts.
Addresses holding between one hundred million and one billion XRP added roughly nine hundred and seventy million tokens in the past thirty days. Wallets above one billion XRP added another one hundred and fifty million. Combined, the value absorbed exceeded twenty four billion dollars at current valuations. Exchange balances continued falling to their lowest level since 2023, a pattern that typically appears during deliberate accumulation phases.
For whales, payments and settlement remain a high-conviction lane, especially when regulatory clarity arrives at the same time the float leaves exchanges.
Older Layer 1s And DeFi Revenue Names Rebuild Positions
Cardano’s ADA became a surprising winner during the drawdown. While retail traders focused on short term price weakness, high-value wallets began rotating in.
The largest ADA wallet cohort started adding on November twenty fourth and has accumulated about one hundred and thirty million tokens. Mid-sized whales holding ten to one hundred million ADA began two days later and added roughly one hundred and fifty million. Both groups showed synchronized inflows, suggesting that, at lower prices, ADA still fits the long-term L1 bucket whales maintain.
DeFi blue chips saw similar behavior.
Uniswap’s UNI attracted roughly eight hundred thousand new tokens in a single week. After the fee-switch vote passed, the top one hundred holders now sit on about eight point nine eight million UNI while exchange supply continues to decline.
AAVE’s whale cohort added more than fifty thousand tokens over thirty days, pushing total holdings to an all time high of about three point nine eight million. Rising TVL and increasing protocol revenue give whales a clear structural reason to re-enter positions while prices remain below peak levels.
Memes Stay Volatile But Attract Selective High-Beta Bets
Meme coins remain a tactical playground. Whales stepped in aggressively where liquidity was thinnest.
One address bought about thirty two point four three million FARTCOIN in twenty four hours, worth roughly ten point seven million dollars. Another pulled forty point four five million PIPPIN, around seven point two eight million dollars. PEPE’s whale holdings rose by approximately one point three six percent over thirty days, surpassing ten million tokens.
These actions reflect classic whale behavior in meme markets. They accumulate when liquidity dries up, knowing that thin order books can later produce explosive upward moves once sentiment flips.
AI, Modular Data And Storage Lead Long-Term Accumulation
Infrastructure tied to AI and modular blockchain design also appeared high on whale shopping lists.
Ethena’s ENA saw whale holdings climb two point eight four percent in one week, with the top hundred addresses adding over fifty million tokens. Celestia’s TIA posted a five percent drop in exchange supply as staking and TVL hit fresh highs, signaling reduced liquid float and stronger long-term alignment.
Storage names rounded out the rotation. As AI models demand more decentralized data capacity, whales began positioning earlier.
FIL whales pulled about one hundred thousand tokens from exchanges over thirty days, cutting exchange supply by fifteen percent. ICP active addresses rose thirty percent while whales withdrew more than fifty thousand tokens from trading venues. ICP’s TVL recovered to about one point two billion dollars as the network regained momentum.
These flows align with the multi-quarter themes whales have favored in prior cycles: data availability, decentralized storage, and infrastructure that supports computational scale.
Takeaway For Traders Watching Whale Footprints
Whale behavior across the market shows a consistent logic. They buy pullbacks, avoid chasing momentum, and concentrate in sectors with either cash flows, regulatory clarity, or clear narrative durability. Meme exposure remains optionality rather than core allocation. And their accumulation two to three quarters ahead of expected catalysts remains a defining feature of every cycle.
For retail, tracking these rotations is useful but not foolproof. Whale buying does not guarantee price appreciation and can later become meaningful sell pressure. Position sizing, independent research, and risk control matter more than shadowing large wallets.
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Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.