I've been wondering about this too. I met a guy who had been into btc pretty early (2015 ish) and had a real job and had bought a lot of it (dunno how much exactly counted as a lot). Contra the usual narrative, he was no steely-eyed god-king with deep principles, he was basically a dipshit who was in the right place/time to strike it big, but less than average success in all other ways.

Anyway, I think: what if that guy had held until now, and found himself with a hundred million dollars on his laptop? What would he do? My first instinct is to think he'd be scared shitless and would move it to Unchained or something. My second thought is that he doesn't have the sense to be scared shitless so maybe he just lets it ride?

But there must be many such examples of way bigger whales than this guy. Remember that Asian hacker guy who had billions worth hid in a big gulp cup or whatever it was?

I would say the reasons why an OG would consider such things are:

You can get a 5% APR margin loan, with only a 25% LTV, in pretty much any size with ETFs

That tool for speculative attack is a huge magnet for coins, there's nothing else even close

Not every person who owns bitcoin adheres to cypherpunk ideals. And the way things are going self-custody could become a pretty niche behavior.

Maybe for tax reasons, or because it's easier not having to hold the private keys.

Don't ETFs have tax advantages? Selling large sums of Bitcoin off the radar is not always easy. Stackers wanting KYC free BTC need to deal directly with OG whales to prevent this!

They can borrow against etf holdings at better rates than they can borrow against bitcoin collateral so I am sure some of this is occurring. Maybe not entire stacks. I also think 100k was an area a lot of early adopters planned to sell some. And I think the last bear market was much deeper than we all expected so a lot of bitcoiners delayed purchases to stack more sats. Now that the price is elevated there is a good chance they are selling a bit to finance the stuff they held off on buying during the bear.

I have a theory over here. Those who like ETFs have profiles: the first one is they get used to make TradFi for their whole life so, they're going to move only where they are comfortable, meaning, with fiat taxes, fiat accounting, everything as intend to be because they made it like that in the last...40 years? I don't know how long they've been there.

Second profile is that amuse me because there are milennials (and all the following) who embrace bitcoin not as a solution or something, just a commodity and don't understand a thing about what are they buying. PlanB's annoucement is not concerning because he's someone who was part of TradFi, so I think his profile is the first one but the rest of people, who are willing to sacrifice their bitcoins for a piece of paper...man, they're getting rugged.

I can understand moving a percentage to a government friendly account like the ETF. Everyone has a different situation and perspective.

I wouldn't do it for anything. Friendship with the government is only good if it gives you some benefit... and even then, be careful. Going from having total sovereignty over your SATs to trusting BlackRock or any regulated entity is trading freedom for "convenience." No thanks.

To me it's pretty simple and nearly what you said - we're around ATHs and this will pull coins to the market. There are sellers, simple as that.

One theory is that they don't buy it in a single move/day, instead they do it continuously at the lowest possible prices. So someone must have sold at those prices and because they bought at lower prices, the prices don't move up too much.

I don't think whales have been going custodial for their coins in a large number, may be a few who still believe in the system and think that it'd be a theft of tax or are afraid they could be caught under the law for selling at non-kyc, or are in need of huge fiat amounts.

TBH, I don't think you can rely on non-KYC exchanges when you need more fiat amounts or when an urgent need arises for a big amount.

Yeah, I’m with you it’s a bit of a stretch. The idea that OG whales would willingly move from cold storage (total sovereignty) into an ETF structure managed by institutions like BlackRock seems counter to everything Bitcoin’s early adopters typically stand for. Can it be proven?** Not really—not in any definitive, on-chain way. You can maybe infer movement patterns or wallet dormancy ending, but “trading keys for ETF shares” is more speculation than fact. Plan B might have models or theories, but those aren’t proof. Why would they do it?** That’s the real question. Maybe for estate planning, liquidity, or integrating BTC into traditional financial portfolios without dealing with custody headaches. But even then—losing privacy, triggering taxes, and trusting third parties? For OGs, that’s a big leap. Tom Lee may be floating the theory, but yeah, I’m skeptical too. It feels like one of those narratives made to explain sideways price action when on-chain data doesn’t offer a clear answer.