Whales are the largest mammals and also the biggest owners of cryptocurrencies in the crypto world. While there are only 0.06% or 11,089 of Bitcoin Wallets holding in excess of USD$1,000,000. They actually total at USD$30,000,000,000, controlling 23% of the Bitcoin market.

Cryptotraders often blame whales for market manipulation when the market just doesn’t react as predicted. They are the invisible hands that classical economist Adam Smith has famously coined in his book the ‘Wealth of Nations’, where in a free market, traders are allowed to trade freely, would give rise to competition. But is the cryptocurrency market truly transparent and open? Quite the opposite.

Shrouded By Secrecy

Definitely not. Most whales’ trades actually happen on dark pools, that are invisible to the public market. It is a concept since the the ’80s, institutional trading houses use dark to trade large amounts as to not impact the market, these trades are not publicly disclosed. Majority of high volume trades also happen over the counter, where cash deals are done face-to-face in local currencies.

Crypto trades also happen too fast for majority of traders to react, as stock markets have fixed operational timings, crypto exchanges do not. Trades happen while traders sleep and most of the time traders miss out on price climbs or dips. Often relying on pre-set sell or buy orders that could possibly trigger a domino or cascading effect of panic sells that can be manipulated by whales.

Platform for Whales

Spiking is a platform for traders to follow whale activities, when to buy and when to sell. At one glance, how is this different from copy trading? The core underlying value is that these whales are verified whales and not people acting like whales (I’m looking at you twitter influencers) to move and manipulate the markets sentiments. Trades are verified on supported exchanges, of whale activities rather than fake sell walls or buy walls.

What’s In It For Whales?

Profit. That’s it. Spiking has a system to properly incentivise whales, through a mirror trade, 21% of the profits from traders who follow their trade. This helps whales lower their exposure, move markets further without risking additional capital. Traders on the other hand keeps 71% of the profits plus capital. I’m assuming the platform receives 8% for keeping the lights on.

Looks like a win-win-win for all.

Educating the Uneducated

Most importantly, as a key differentiation from copy trading. The platform promotes educational materials created by its Certified Smart Traders for its users. Though this remains to be implemented through gamification models or the perhaps boring video tutorials, I believe this is an element of great paramount that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is severely lacking.

People are simply trading on human emotions like FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) or FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) that harms the market. Market makers knows how to play the market this way by predicting how the markets will react. The same logic goes for technical analysis, which I personally believe it’s merely a self fulfilling prophesy. With proper education, users can safeguard against these bad practices and act with discernment.

Closing

Maybe Spiking has found a way to incentivise the Whales to be more transparent, and already has a proven model with stocks, (https://spiking.com/). Their main hurdle, I believe, would be if they convince and find these whales to join their platform.

So the age old saying goes — if you can’t beat them, join them.