The largest BTC wallets, aka the Bitcoin whales, started buying in late July. And a $233 million institutional inflow followed days later, a sequence that put big money on the bid just as Bitcoin entered the weakest month on its calendar.

The turn stands out because August has closed red for four straight years. Whale wallets and exchange-traded fund desks are wading in anyway, and the timing of who moved first is the real story.

Bitcoin Whales Moved First, and the Timestamps Show It

Bitcoin (BTC) whales started adding before Wall Street did. Wallets holding 1,000 to 10,000 BTC lifted their share of supply from about 21.11% on July 23 to 21.25% by month-end, according to Santiment data supplied for this analysis.

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The larger 10,000 to 100,000 BTC cohort had been trimming since July 22. It bottomed near 11.19% on July 27, then turned back up to 11.25% into the close of the month.

Those shifts read as small in percentage terms. Yet the combined 0.20% gain across both cohorts, applied to Bitcoin’s roughly 20.06 million circulating supply, works out to about 40,100 BTC, worth close to $2.6 billion.

Derivatives positioning leaned the same way, which gives more weight to Santiment’s data. A whale-retail divergence reading of +21.8 on the daily timeframe flagged large traders as far more tilted toward long exposure than retail, a setup the dashboard labeled bullish divergence. The score reflects Binance Futures positioning, so it signals conviction rather than confirmed spot buying.

If whales were the first movers, the open question was whether institutions would follow, and the ETF tape answered within days.

Then a $233 Million Institutional Day Followed

US spot Bitcoin ETFs had been bleeding. The funds posted four straight negative sessions, including outflows of $225.18 million on July 23 and $240.08 million on July 24, before flows turned modestly positive at $32.11 million on July 29.

Then July 30 delivered $233.13 million in net inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $183.4 million of the total, or about 79% of the day. The single session pulled spot Bitcoin ETF demand back to life after a run of redemptions.

The size matters less than the timing. July 30 was the second-largest single-day inflow of the month, behind the $265.69 million recorded on July 6, and it landed at the very end of July. It also arrived while the market was still digesting a corporate bitcoin buying freeze among some large treasury holders.

Institutions did not lead this turn. They stepped in after the on-chain cohorts had already started buying. What makes that sequence uncomfortable is the calendar it runs into.

Into Bitcoin’s Worst Month on Record

August is the problem. It carries a median return near negative 8%, the weakest of any month, and it has closed red every year since 2022. That record anchors the cautious Bitcoin August price prediction now facing the market.

July, by contrast, is on track to close green for a third straight year, a rare streak. That makes the late-month buying a bet against strong seasonal odds rather than a confirmation of them. Big money is possibly positioning for a rebound, though the data cannot rule out hedging or short-dated trades.

Yet, the convergence is real. Whale cohorts, futures positioning, and ETF cash all turned higher at once, in that order. Whether that marks accumulation before a bounce or a crowded bet into Bitcoin’s cruelest month is the wager August will settle.

Source: BeInCrypto