You may often hear the term "whale" in the crypto community, but not many people truly understand it. Simply put, a whale is an individual or institution that has accumulated a massive amount of crypto assets through early investments, mining, or other methods. These individuals hold large amounts of disposable cryptocurrency, and a single buy or sell decision can trigger significant market volatility.

This is also why traders monitor whale movements. Once a whale makes a large transfer or trade, it could mean a market shift is imminent. This behavior is called "tracking whales"—analyzing their actions to gain investment insights.

But here’s the question: how much do you need to hold to be considered a whale? There’s no fixed standard. The concept is quite relative. The key isn’t the absolute amount you hold, but the proportion of that amount in the total supply of the coin, and whether you can influence the price through trading.

Let me give you an example. Suppose A holds $1 million worth of a certain coin, and the total market cap of that coin is only $100 million—that makes A a whale. Similarly, if B also holds $1 million, but the total market cap of the coin is $30 billion, then B wouldn’t be considered a whale. Although both hold the same dollar amount, A has much more influence and can more easily sway the market.

Thanks to the transparency and openness of blockchain, there are actually many ways to identify active whales. Large transactions, wallet flows, on-chain data—all of these can help traders find clues.