Analysis: Shiba Inu whale holds 103 trillion SHIB untouched for 5 years, turning a $10,000 investment into a peak value of $50 billion

According to a report by Odaily, blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps has disclosed that a mysterious whale address cluster in the Shiba Inu (SHIB) ecosystem has been holding approximately 103 trillion SHIB since 2020. The initial position was built with just 38 ETH (worth about $10,000 at the time) and once reached an unrealized peak valuation exceeding $50 billion, making it one of the most astonishing investment cases in crypto market history.

Bubblemaps' tracking reveals that the whale initially purchased 103 trillion SHIB via wallet address 0x1406, representing about 10% of the circulating supply at that time. As the SHIB price surged, the value of this position once reached approximately $5 billion. Currently, the asset value held by this address cluster still exceeds $2.5 billion, with a cumulative return of over 21,000 times.

To reduce exposure risk, the whale split the assets across 14 addresses in November 2021. In January 2023, Bubblemaps first disclosed this SHIB whale cluster, which then controlled about 10% of the SHIB supply, valued at over $1 billion, sparking community discussions about the high concentration of holdings in a single entity.

Subsequently, the address cluster underwent continuous address migrations and splits. In September 2023, Bubblemaps found that its holdings had spread from a few obvious wallets to many new addresses, considered a typical operation to reduce on-chain visibility. Using the Magic Nodes tool, Bubblemaps was still able to identify the connections between these wallets.

During the SHIB rally in early 2024, the whale's position value once again exceeded $2 billion, with the number of wallets expanding to over 170 addresses. As of now, the cluster still controls approximately 8.51% of SHIB's circulating supply, down from the initial 10%. However, Bubblemaps states that this decline is mainly due to normal on-chain transfers, and no large-scale selling activity has been detected.

Bubblemaps notes that this case demonstrates the significant value of on-chain transparency tools: an entity can hide a massive position by splitting wallets, but all fund transfers leave a public on-chain record. This SHIB whale case has also become a typical sample for observing 'whale behavior, holding concentration, and on-chain tracking' in the crypto market.