While Ethereum has been an attractive asset to whales given its potential, altcoins such as Polygon (MATIC) have joined in on the whales’ favorite tokens list. Earlier today, Whalestats, an account that monitors whales’ transactions and discloses them, revealed that two blue whales were seen purchasing a massive amount of MATIC.
Per the account, the whale reportedly bought 2,061,476 MATIC worth around $2.6 billion. The purchase had some notable impact on MATIC’S price. Of the top ten cryptocurrencies with the largest market share, only MATIC gained the most in the last 24 hours.
🐳 ETH whale “BlueWhale0502” just bought 2,061,476 $matic ($2,618,074 USD).
Ranked #187 on WhaleStats: https://t.co/Xp99i8aHLT
Transaction: https://t.co/gRbtbdhHLt#ethereum #whalestats #babywhale #BBW
— WhaleStats (tracking crypto whales) (@WhaleStats) February 8, 2023
Polygon (MATIC) Surges Nearly 20%
Since the whale activity to the time of writing, MATIC has spiked in price by 4%, cumulating bullish momentum in the past seven days and recording a profit of nearly 20%. Among the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, MATIC is still the only asset trending to the upside.
Notably, the past few weeks have seen MATIC moving upward before the whales’ intervention, especially since the beginning of the year. MATIC has moved from the $0.75 price tag seen late last year to $1.28 at the time of writing.
The Polygon token still ranks steadily as the tenth most valuable by market capitalization according to data aggregators — CoinGecko and Coinmarketcap. Polygon records a market cap of $11.5 billion, higher than Solana with $8.6 billion but below Dogecoin, which holds a $12.4 billion market cap.
While the Polygon token has climbed multiple highs since the beginning of the year, it is still down 56% from its all-time high of $2.92, seen in December 2021. If the crypto market continues the current rally, MATIC and other altcoins could retake previously lost territory.
MATIC Attracts Ethereum Investors
WhaleStats’ leadership board shows that the top 100 massive ETH holders hold roughly $100 million in MATIC. Other altcoins on the list include meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB), with whales holding less than 700 million SHIB tokens. Over the past seven days, SHIB has surged by more than 16%, with a market cap of over $8.1 billion.
SHIB currently outshines Polkadot (DOT), Litecoin (LTC), and Avalanche (AVAX) and holds the 12th position as the most significant crypto by market cap. SHIB’s previous rally was not surprising for some traders following the development of the Layer 2 solution Shibarium which is expected to play a big part in the token’s bullish trend.