Unit 4 · Level 4 · On-Chain Analysis
Whales, wallets & cohorts
Analysts slice holders into cohorts: whales (huge wallets), long-term holders (coins >155 days old), short-term holders (recent buyers). Each cohort behaves differently: LTHs sell into euphoria and accumulate despair; STHs do the opposite. The dance between them IS the cycle.
Free to play. No ads, no token, no account needed to start.
What you get asked
Historically, long-term holders as a group tend to…
The patient cohort farms the impatient one, cycle after cycle. On-chain lets you watch which side of that trade you're currently on.
Match the cohort behavior to the cycle phase it suggests
Cost-basis metrics show where cohorts break even: psychological battle lines drawn straight from ledger data.
A 'whale alert' shows 5,000 BTC moving to an exchange. Before reacting, the trained question is:
Or custody shuffling between known cold wallets? Most 'whale alerts' are exchanges rebalancing their own storage. Labeled-wallet datasets separate signal from theater; raw alerts are mostly theater.
A token where the top ten wallets hold most of the supply carries extreme ___ risk.
Ten people can end the party whenever they like. The holder-distribution check belongs in your tokenomics due diligence: three more minutes, entire rug categories avoided.
Stocks vs crypto transparency, final verdict:
Different windows, both readable with skill. You now read earnings AND ledgers. Few traders alive do both. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Exchange flows, whale cohorts, protocol books: reading the glass ledger.