Svmuu News: Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps revealed that a cluster of mysterious whale addresses within the Shiba Inu (SHIB) ecosystem has continuously held approximately 103 trillion SHIB since 2020, having initially spent just 38 ETH (approximately $10,000 at the time) to build its position. At its peak, the paper profit exceeded a valuation of $50 billion, making it one of the most astonishing investment cases in the history of the crypto market.
According to Bubblemaps’ tracking, the whale initially purchased 103 trillion SHIB through the wallet address 0x1406, accounting for approximately 10% of the circulating supply at the time. As the price of SHIB rose, the value of this position once reached approximately $5 billion; currently, the assets held by this cluster of addresses are still valued at over $2.5 billion, representing a cumulative return of more than 21,000 times.
To reduce exposure risk, the whale split its assets across 14 addresses in November 2021. In January 2023, Bubblemaps first disclosed this SHIB whale cluster, which at the time controlled approximately 10% of the SHIB supply, valued at over $1 billion, sparking community discussion about the highly concentrated holdings of a single entity.
Subsequently, this cluster of addresses underwent continuous migration and fragmentation. In September 2023, Bubblemaps observed that its holdings had spread from a small number of prominent wallets to a larger number of new addresses—a move widely regarded as a typical tactic to reduce on-chain visibility. Using the Magic Nodes tool, Bubblemaps was still able to identify the relationships between these wallets.
During SHIB’s rally in early 2024, the value of this whale’s holdings once again surpassed $2 billion, with the number of wallets expanding to over 170 addresses. As of now, this cluster still controls approximately 8.51% of SHIB’s circulating supply—a decline from the initial 10%—but Bubblemaps notes that this is primarily due to normal on-chain transfers, and no large-scale selling activity has been detected.
Bubblemaps points out that this case demonstrates the significant value of on-chain transparency tools: while an entity can hide massive holdings by splitting them across multiple wallets, all fund transfers leave a public on-chain record. This SHIB whale case has also become a typical example for observing “whale behavior, position concentration, and on-chain tracking” in the crypto market.