Key Points
- A Bitcoin whale known as “Mr. 100” has accumulated over 52,996 Bitcoin, valued at over $3.5 billion.
- The Mr. 100 wallet is speculated to belong to the Upbit cryptocurrency exchange, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence.
A Bitcoin whale, colloquially referred to as “Mr. 100”, has drawn attention in the crypto community after acquiring over 52,996 Bitcoin, currently worth over $3.5 billion.
Who is “Mr. 100”?
The whale, recognized as Mr. 100, purchased at least 1,000 Bitcoin (BTC) on March 15, making up 52% of the total 1,907 BTC bought by ten Bitcoin ETFs, as per an X (formerly Twitter) post by HODL15Capital.
This wallet has been consistently receiving Bitcoin since November 2022, following the collapse of the FTX exchange. It has been adding at least 100 BTC almost daily since February 14.
The wallet has also received larger Bitcoin transfers from a secondary wallet address, which has also been adding tranches of 100 BTC since 2019. This suggests that the whale has been accumulating Bitcoin since at least 2019, according to HODL15Capital.
Speculations Surrounding Mr. 100
Based on the size of the acquisitions, there are speculations that the whale could be a Hong Kong financial institution pre-seeding for ETFs, the Qatar Investment Authority, other Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, a cold wallet associated with South Korean Upbit exchange, or an unknown tech billionaire's address.
Despite Bitcoin's price being near all-time highs, Mr. 100 continues to accumulate, adding 400 BTC on March 12, when Bitcoin traded above the $72,000 mark.
After this accumulation spree, the Mr. 100 wallet is currently the 14th largest BTC holder, according to Bitinfocharts data.
Link to Upbit
The Mr. 100 wallet has been identified as a cold wallet belonging to the Upbit cryptocurrency exchange by Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain intelligence firm.
Based on blockchain data analysed by Crystal Intelligence, the mysterious wallet is said to belong to Upbit. They stated that the number and value of transactions associated with this wallet are indicative of a VASP-type service.
Looking at the wallet’s outflows, Mr. 100 has only been sending Bitcoin transactions to a wallet tagged as an Upbit hot wallet, by Arkham’s platform.
The analytics team behind Crystal Intelligence confirmed that the secondary wallets also belong to Upbit exchange. Thus, the "Mr. 100" wallet likely belongs to Upbit, argues pseudonymous on-chain analyst Defioasis.
HODL15Capital also noted that a South Korean entity is stacking large amounts of Bitcoin, in a March 15 X post, referencing the heatmap from below.
All the 14 secondary wallet addresses associated with the main wallet of Mr. 100 have passed Know Your Customer (KYC) verification on Upbit exchange, wrote pseudonymous on-chain sleuth Mai in a March 15 X response.
