Legendary Crypto Wallets Spanning Multiple Bull Cycles

Successful crypto investors often leave a distinct on-chain footprint—wallet addresses that consistently accumulate the right coins before major price run-ups and take profits during market peaks. By studying these wallets across multiple bull market cycles, such as those in 2017, 2021, and the anticipated 2024-2025 periods, we can identify patterns of savvy investment behavior. In this analysis, we explore some historically profitable wallets and clusters, ranging from early Bitcoin and Ethereum “whales” to those involved in DeFi and memecoins. We also highlight the tools and methods used to track these astute addresses and provide links and profiles that traders utilize to mimic or anticipate their moves.

Early Bitcoin Whales and Multi-Cycle Holders

Bitcoin’s longest-standing whales have successfully navigated market cycles for over a decade. For instance, a Satoshi-era address that contained 50 BTC, mined in 2010, remained dormant for 14 years and was reactivated in late 2024. This address turned an initial investment of roughly $2 into $3.38 million—resulting in an astonishing 169,358,650% gain. These ancient wallets illustrate the immense profits gained from holding through multiple market cycles.

Another example occurred in October 2024 when Whale Alert reported a long-dormant BTC address, inactive since 2013, waking up with 25 BTC, valued at approximately $1.7 million. The owner cashed out after more than 10 years of appreciation. Such “sleeping” whales often reactivate during bull markets to realize their gains.

Not all whales simply hold onto their assets; some actively accumulate in bear markets and distribute during bulls. A notable strategy was noted by Lookonchain: one large holder accumulated around 96,000 BTC during the 2018-2019 bear market, when prices were low, and then sold portions during the 2021 rally to secure substantial profits. Similarly, in the case of Ethereum, an investor who gathered 96,000 ETH during the bear market of 2022 sold significant amounts during the price recovery of 2023-2024, including a recent sale of 15,000 ETH in September 2024. This pattern of buying at lows and selling at highs epitomizes the behavior of smart money over multiple cycles.

Even mid-sized early holders have experienced life-changing gains by timing the market cycles. A Dogecoin address that held 1.56 million DOGE since January 2014 (originally worth about $845) finally moved some coins in 2023, after being dormant for over 9 years. By the time of the 2021 Dogecoin mania, the stash had increased to a value of over $400,000. In November 2023, on-chain data revealed a spike in activity from old Dogecoin wallets, coinciding with the start of a new memecoin rally. In just one month, 121 new whale wallets holding at least 1 million DOGE appeared, indicating that “big money” interest was shifting into DOGE.

These examples underscore the success of early believers who held through multiple cycles and capitalized on later surges.

Ethereum Early Adopters and ICO Whales

Ethereum’s inception and the participants of its initial coin offering (ICO) in 2014 became some of the wealthiest addresses in the cryptocurrency space by 2017 and 2021. One notable Ethereum ICO whale received 150,000 ETH at genesis for just $46,000 and held most of it for nearly a decade. By September 2024, that accumulation was worth $390 million, reflecting an astonishing 837,964% return. This wallet, which had remained inactive for years, finally “woke up” and sent 3,510 ETH (valued at $9.1 million) to Kraken, presumably to realize some profits. The decision to hold through the market booms in 2017 and 2021 before making a move suggests either extreme conviction or the recovery of lost access to the wallet. Many early ETH whales exhibited a similar pattern: they held during multiple bull runs and gradually took profits as valuations soared.

On the other hand, some ETH whales have been more active throughout market cycles. The Ethereum Foundation, for instance, famously sold ETH near the peaks of market cycles (such as at the end of 2017), demonstrating a strategy of profit-taking by an early holder. Conversely, some seasoned whales found opportunities during the depths of bear markets. Lookonchain reported on one whale who aggressively bought ETH in late 2022, when its price was approximately $1,100, accumulating tens of thousands of ETH and then selling large portions once the price surpassed $1,800 in 2023. This strategy of accumulating during a bear market and selling during a bull market resulted in profits of tens of millions.

Additionally, altcoin ICO whales from 2017 have shown similar activity across multiple cycles. For example, addresses that heavily invested in BNB (Binance Coin) in 2017 and SOL (Solana) in 2020 experienced significant price increases in subsequent cycles. Some of these activities can be tracked through fund labels, such as those of Pantera Capital, one of the earliest crypto funds. Recently, Arkham Intelligence identified and tagged addresses belonging to Pantera Capital, which participated in numerous token sales and early investments—from Bitcoin and ETH in 2014 to DeFi and layer-1 tokens later on. By following these fund-owned wallets, investors can gain insights into where long-term “smart money” is placing its bets ahead of the next market wave.

“Smart Money” Rotations in DeFi and Alt Seasons

Beyond simply holding Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), some wallets actively rotate into the hottest sectors each cycle—such as DeFi, NFTs, or trending altcoins—earning them the status of “smart money.” On-chain analytics firm Nansen labels certain addresses as “Smart Money” if they consistently make profitable moves. In early 2024, Nansen observed that Smart Money wallets allocated only about 5% of their portfolios to stablecoins, the lowest level since early 2021. This suggests that these large holders were fully deploying their capital into crypto, which is a bullish sign.

The top holdings outside BTC and ETH for these wallets included DeFi tokens (like UNI, AAVE, and MKR), gaming and metaverse tokens, real-world asset tokens, AI tokens, and even memecoins such as PEPE and SHIB. This illustrates how experienced wallets position themselves for emerging narratives, identifying sectors like AI or meme coins before they experience significant price increases.

By late 2023, the stablecoin allocation percentage among Smart Money wallets hit multi-year lows, indicating that whales were heavily invested in crypto tokens rather than holding cash. Historically, such dips in stablecoin holdings have preceded bullish market moves, similar to the low levels observed in February 2021. This metric from Nansen demonstrates the confidence that Smart Money has in the market uptrend, as they rotated out of stablecoins into various cryptocurrencies.

In March 2024, Nansen highlighted specific wallets that exemplified smart rotations:

1. **ThetaTfuel** – This address anticipated the AI token boom, beginning to accumulate AI tokens in November 2023. It purchased Fetch.ai (FET) at $0.38 and SingularityNET (AGIX) at $0.24. After a 3-5x run-up in those tokens, this wallet exited for a $2.5 million profit. It then reinvested those gains into Fantom (FTM), buying at prices between $0.31 and $0.69 ahead of Fantom’s major tech upgrade and Andre Cronje’s return. By early 2024, it had already realized a ~2.5x profit on FTM. This illustrates the strategy of narrative rotation: AI was trending in late 2023, and then layer-1 tokens like FTM gained traction—ThetaTfuel capitalized early on both.

2. **Big Brain Holdings** – Acting like a crypto fund, this whale address had nearly $80 million on-chain by 2024, with substantial positions in multiple narratives. Notably, it achieved a 9x gain on METIS (an L2 token) and an 8x gain on ENQAI (an AI token). It bought METIS at around $12 in August 2023 and ENQAI at approximately $0.01 in January 2024, well before each token surged. Big Brain Holdings also maintained a diverse portfolio that included GameFi, AI, real-world assets, and layer-2 tokens while keeping about $56 million in USDC as dry powder. This mix of realized profits and reserved stablecoins suggests a strategy of pursuing high-conviction bets while retaining capital for future opportunities.

These wallets have proven profitable across multiple cycles by shifting their focus as new opportunities arise—previously emphasizing sectors like DeFi in 2020, NFTs in 2021, layer-1s in 2021-2022, and memecoins or AI in 2023-2024. They are not tied to one specific coin; instead, they rotate between emerging narratives. For instance, during the 2017 ICO boom, some Smart Money addresses amassed large stakes in new ICO tokens and then cashed out, re-emerging in the yield farming craze of 2020. One well-known DeFi whale, identified by the address 0x_b1, deployed around $450 million across numerous yield farms during 2020-2021. The same 0x_b1 address even created a Twitter account to share its moves and conducted giveaways for DeFi communities. While 0x_b1’s capital ultimately stemmed from a lending fund (Celsius Network), it exemplified how a whale active in one cycle, such as DeFi summer, likely used profits from previous cycles to reinvest and publicly engage in the trends of the next cycle.

Meme Coin Millionaires Across Cycles

No discussion of cycle-spanning wallets is complete without mentioning the memecoin “degenerates” who struck gold more than once. During the 2021 memecoin season, a handful of early Shiba Inu (SHIB) buyers famously turned small investments into fortunes. Some of these same addresses reemerged during the 2023 Pepe (PEPE) craze. According to Lookonchain analysis, three “SmartMoney” wallets made millions from both SHIB and PEPE:

1. **Wallet 0x778C…** – Acquired 1.31 trillion SHIB in February 2021 for just $13,500 and later sold it for $5.81 million, representing approximately a 430x return. This wallet then invested in PEPE in April 2023, purchasing 396.7 billion PEPE for about $9,800, and made a profit of around $1.18 million while still holding some PEPE.

2. **Wallet 0x2AF8…** – Entered SHIB in April 2021 and made $3.84 million from it. This wallet subsequently invested approximately $286,000 into PEPE early on, resulting in a profit of $1.34 million.

3. **cryptopolitan.eth** – This ENS-labeled whale gained $2.45 million from SHIB and $695,000 from PEPE during their respective surges.

In summary, these three addresses consistently repeated their success across two memecoin cycles, benefiting from the SHIB explosion in 2021 and the PEPE craze in 2023. The ability of these wallets to hit the jackpot multiple times suggests they possess a keen eye for viral trends, or possibly insider information about launches. Traders closely monitor such wallets—when they invest in the next meme coin, followers take note.

Another notable memecoin wallet was that of the SHIB billionaire, an address that famously turned about $8,000 of SHIB into over $5 billion by holding from its inception in 2020 to its peak in 2021. This address held over 10% of SHIB’s total supply, and in 2021, it began moving portions of that fortune by transferring roughly $30 million chunks into new addresses. On-chain analysts believe this could be an insider or project wallet due to its size, with some analysis suggesting ties to SHIB’s deployers. Although this wallet was not a repeat trader (primarily just holding SHIB), it demonstrates how early conviction in a memecoin—even as a joke—can yield extraordinary profits. Smaller copycat wallets tried to emulate this pattern with PEPE, FLOKI, and others in later cycles.

Lastly, let’s consider Dogecoin (DOGE) whales. Dogecoin was created in 2013, and several original whale addresses held substantial stakes during the 2017 and 2021 market booms. The largest Dogecoin address, which once held 28% of the total supply, drew significant attention during the 2021 frenzy. This address was later attributed to a brokerage (Robinhood) rather than an individual. However, other large early DOGE addresses cashed out during 2021. For instance, on-chain data from May 2021 revealed multiple transfers of millions of DOGE from top-20 wallets to exchanges or new addresses (e.g., a transfer of 22.4 million DOGE, worth approximately $1.78 million, from a whale wallet). These movements often occurred alongside the hype of Elon Musk’s SNL appearance, as savvy whales sought to sell during the retail frenzy. By tracking these wallets—some of which had been accumulating Dogecoin for years—analysts could observe old holders taking exit liquidity after holding through multiple market cycles. In late 2023, as Dogecoin gained attention again, Santiment reported a wave of dormant DOGE moving and new whale wallets forming, suggesting that some 2014-era holders might be positioning themselves or distributing DOGE for the next rally.

Tracking Tools and Community Methods

Identifying and learning from these wallets requires tools to track on-chain activity. Here are some popular methods the community uses to surface “smart money” and follow their bets:

• Nansen Analytics: Nansen is a premier on-chain analytics platform that labels wallets (e.g. exchange, fund, smart LP, miner) and tracks their trades. Nansen’s Smart Money dashboard shows what top profitable wallets are buying or selling in real-time. For example, Nansen noted in 2024 that smart money was piling into tokens like PEPE, YFI, and FET (AI token) based on spikes in those wallets’ holdings. Nansen also publishes profiles on specific whale addresses (like the ThetaTfuel and BigBrain wallets mentioned), revealing their entry prices and profit multiples . Traders use Nansen to set alerts on these wallets, so when a known whale makes a new move (say, deploying $1M into a new altcoin), they get notified. This allows one to front-run or at least investigate the token that caught smart money interest. Nansen’s labeling of “📈Smart LP” or “💰Fund” on addresses can quickly show if a token’s buyers include historically savvy players.

• Arkham Intelligence: Arkham is another analytics platform that emphasizes de-anonymizing notable wallets. In March 2025, Arkham launched a feature to tag “Key Opinion Leaders (KOL)” – over 950 addresses linked to famous figures (anyone with 100k+ followers) . This includes wallets of people like Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Andre Cronje, and even some politicians . By following these tags, users can see when (for example) a DeFi founder or influencer moves funds. Arkham also lets the community create and share address labels; they’ve identified hedge fund wallets, like Gigantic Rebirth (GCR) – a trader known for turning a few thousand dollars into a fortune via savvy trades (he famously shorted Luna in 2022). Arkham’s profile on GCR aggregates his known addresses and trades . Similarly, Arkham’s database includes fund wallets (e.g. Alameda, Three Arrows, Polychain) and hacker wallets, which can be informative (some hacked-funds wallets later behave like savvy traders!). The Arkham interface basically gives a “blockchain address phonebook” where traders can look up if an address cluster is tied to a known entity.

• DeBank and Web3 Social: DeBank is a portfolio tracker that has evolved into a social platform for sharing wallets. Users can follow others’ addresses and see a feed of their transactions. DeBank even provides a “Web3 Social Ranking” – a leaderboard of the most-followed wallets (often those of famous DeFi whales or NFT collectors) . By checking the DeBank ranking, you can discover which wallets many people are watching, implying those addresses have a reputation for smart moves. Traders will follow these wallets on DeBank to get a curated feed of everything they do (e.g. providing liquidity, buying into a new protocol, etc.). A pro tip from one guide: “Good whales follow other good whales.” After finding a wallet you like, look at who they follow on DeBank – those lists are automatically sorted by portfolio size, making it easy to find other major players . This way, a few starting points can lead you to a whole network of alpha wallets to monitor. DeBank’s interface lets you see their holdings on each chain, transaction history, and even a “Similar wallets” suggestion. The community often shares DeBank profile links for known profitable wallets so others can easily follow them.

• Dune Dashboards: Dune Analytics is a community-driven data platform where users build custom SQL queries and visualizations. There are public dashboards that track whale behaviors, such as “Smart Money Token God Mode” (which shows what tokens smart money addresses are buying/selling over time) or dashboards that rank addresses by realized profits on certain protocols. For example, one might find a Dune dashboard listing the top profit-makers on Uniswap or the addresses that farmed and dumped a new airdrop the fastest. Dune was used to identify addresses that consistently won in MEV trading, or to track all the wallets that participated in multiple IDOs/pre-sales across 2019–2021. By exploring popular queries on Dune, one can glean lists of high-performing addresses for further tracking. The data is open, though it requires some skill to interpret – but many analysts share their dashboards on crypto Twitter and forums.

• On-Chain Sleuths on Twitter: A lot of alpha comes from accounts like @lookonchain, @emberCN (Ember), @whale_alert, and @Santimentfeed, which regularly post notable wallet activities. Lookonchain in particular has carved a niche in calling out “smart whale” trades in real-time – e.g., they highlighted the 3 SHIB+PEPE addresses above as soon as PEPE started pumping . They often tweet things like “Whale X bought Y token before a 200% pump, still holding…” along with Etherscan links. Following these services can tip off traders to wallets worth investigating. Sometimes even crypto media picks up these analyses, as seen when CoinDesk and others reported on whales moving funds (like the SHIB whale moving $30M , or dormant BTC waking up). In essence, Twitter has become a crowdsourced wallet-tracking tool, where analysts share wallet addresses of interest and thousands of eyes start watching them.

• Whale Watching Bots: There are bots and sites specifically for whale tracking – e.g. Whale Alert (for large transfers across various chains) and BitInfoCharts (which lists top holders for many coins). BitInfoCharts can show, say, the top 100 Bitcoin addresses and their latest moves (useful to see if a long-inactive address suddenly sent coins to an exchange). For Ethereum and tokens, Etherscan provides holder charts and a “watch list” feature: users can tag addresses and get notified of their activity. Some traders maintain an Etherscan watchlist of dozens of known whale addresses to catch any moves. Additionally, specialized trackers exist for certain niches – e.g., NFT whale trackers that announce when big collectors buy a new NFT (not directly about bull cycles, but relevant to 2021 NFT cycle).

Public Wallet Profiles to Follow

To truly emulate or front-run these smart wallets, many traders directly follow their addresses via the above tools. Here are a few public profiles and trackers often shared:

• Nansen Wallet Profiler Links: When Nansen publishes research, they sometimes share the address or a link to “Wallet Profiler” for that wallet (accessible to subscribers). For instance, they gave a link to the ThetaTfuel wallet on Nansen and Big Brain Holdings wallet . With Nansen (or even free alternatives like Zapper), one can plug these addresses in and see the tokens held, the timeline of trades, and PnL (if known). For privacy, we won’t paste the raw addresses here, but Nansen’s newsletter references make it easy to find them.

• Arkham Investor Profiles: Arkham’s platform assigns unique pages to entities. For example, Arkham’s profile for Gigantic Rebirth (GCR) consolidates his known exchange accounts and wallets . Traders using Arkham can “follow” this profile to get updates. Arkham’s new KOL tag means you can simply search a famous name and, if Arkham has mapped their wallet (like Justin Sun’s wallet or Vitalik’s main wallet), you can start tracking it . Some traders will subscribe to alerts on these – e.g. if Vitalik’s wallet suddenly sends ETH to an exchange, it might be time to take caution (as happened in past cycles).

• DeBank & Zerion Feeds: Many whale addresses are public on DeBank’s “People” section. For example, the team behind MilkRoad (a crypto newsletter) made a public DeBank wallet that they encourage readers to follow, as a fun way to track their portfolio . Likewise, well-known Ethereum whales sometimes have ENS names that make them easy to find on DeBank (e.g. cryptopolitan.eth we mentioned can be viewed on DeBank to see if he’s apeing into anything new). By following such profiles, one’s DeBank feed becomes a tailored “smart money moves” news feed. Zerion and Zapper offer similar social portfolio features – you can tag certain addresses as “friends” and see a combined feed of their actions. Some traders even create Telegram bots that relay transactions from specific wallets they track, so they never miss a beat.

• Dune Dashboards Links: If a particular Dune dashboard is tracking, say, “Top 10 wallets accumulating $PEPE this week”, traders will share that link around during a hype cycle. Those dashboards often include the actual addresses, which one can then plug into Etherscan or tracking tools. A good example was a Dune board for Blur AirDrop farmers in 2023 – it listed addresses that earned and sold the most BLUR tokens. Those addresses turned out to also be active NFT flippers with profitable histories in 2021-22. In general, whenever a new narrative emerges (like “Friend.tech” SocialFi in 2023 or a new airdrop in 2024), you can bet someone made a Dune query to find which addresses are making bank from it across previous cycles, and those addresses become hot tips to follow.

In summary, a select group of crypto wallets has proven to be resilient and profitable through various market cycles by adopting strategies such as early accumulation, smart rotation, and timely exits near market peaks. These include early Bitcoin and Ethereum addresses, participants in the Ethereum ICO, agile funds, and meme-coin enthusiasts. The common thread among them is their ability to stay ahead of the crowd—whether by holding assets before mainstream adoption (as seen in the early days of BTC and ETH) or by identifying emerging trends before they take off (as observed during DeFi Summer or the Pepe meme surge).

Fortunately, the transparent nature of blockchain technology allows us to study these successful on-chain participants. With tools like Nansen, Arkham, and DeBank, the crypto community closely monitors the movements of “smart money.” By following public whale profiles, analyzing on-chain metrics, and staying informed through analysts, everyday traders can gain valuable insights. While they may not fully replicate the strategies of these whales, they can certainly benefit from understanding their patterns.

As we approach the 2024-2025 bull cycle, many of these seasoned wallets are already strategically positioned, typically maintaining low stablecoin allocations and making high-conviction investments. New wallets will also emerge, seizing opportunities in this cycle. Keeping track of these wallets can be a powerful strategy for staying ahead in the ever-changing crypto markets.

Sources:

• Nansen on current Smart Money trends and example whale wallets

• Lookonchain via CoinCu on SHIB & PEPE early investors (0x778c, 0x2af8, cryptopolitan.eth)

• Binance Research on the dormant SHIB whale (10% of supply) moving funds

• The Daily Hodl on an ancient Dogecoin whale from 2014 awakening in 2023

• U.Today on a 2010 Bitcoin address activation with 50 BTC (14-year hold)

• Cryptorank (DailyHodl) on the Ethereum ICO whale 150k ETH and 837,964% gain

• CoinDesk on Arkham’s influencer wallet tracking (KOL tag, 950+ addresses)

• Medium (Anna DH) on using DeBank to find and follow whale wallets .