DeFi Researcher: Revealing the "Whale Holders" Behind 8 Popular Crypto Protocols

Written by: Thor Hartvigsen, DeFi Researcher

Compiled by: Bai Ze Research Institute

DeFi researcher Thor Hartvigsen spent three weeks tracking the top "whales" behind eight high-performing protocols based on his self-created database, studying token holder rankings, venture capital, and "smart investor" wallet trackers, revealing the answers for us.

1. $LDO (Lido Finance)

Holders:

• Paradigm Capital: 7% (70 million $LDO)
• Dragonfly Capital: 2.7% (27 million $LDO)
• Certus One (node operator): 10 million $LDO
• Wintermute: 8 million $LDO
• Defiance Capital: 7 million $LDO
• Cobie: 4.8 million $LDO
• Kain Warwick: 4 million $LDO
• Alex Svanevik: 3.5 million $LDO

Other investors include Jump Capital, Arthur Hayes, Alameda Research, 3AC, and Delphi Digital.

According to Token Terminal data:

• Paradigm's 100 million $LDO tokens will be fully unlocked on May 1, 2023, of which 79 million have already been unlocked.
• Dragonfly unlocked an additional 10 million LDO tokens on August 25, 2023.

2. GMX

Holders:

• Arthur Hayes (co-founder of BitMEX): 200,500 $GMX (worth about $15.5 million)
• Unknown Whale 1: 196,000 $GMX
• Unknown Whale 2: 147,000 $GMX (also has $10 million in $ETH on Aave)
• Unknown Whale 3: 87,000 $GMX
• 'Mewtwooo': 55,500 $GMX (also holds $5 million in $GNS)
• Tano: 10,000 $GMX

The GMX protocol is difficult to track because data provider Nansen does not show those who have staked GMX. Debank has been very helpful here:

• Arthur purchased most of his GMX at the beginning of 2022 (at a cost of $20~30 per token).
• The following image shows some other assets held in two unknown GMX whale wallets.

3. $RPL (Rocket Pool)

Holders:

• Patricio Worthalter (POAP founder): 613,000 $RPL (worth about $32 million)
• 1kx (investment firm): 534,000 $RPL (worth about $27.9 million)
• Blockchain Capital: 121,000 $RPL
• LayerX Capital: 38,000 $RPL
• Three unknown whale wallets hold 6% of the total supply of $RPL

Patricio's wallet holds over $100 million in $RPL, having acquired most of it back in 2018 and has been taking profits since then.

1kx purchased their $RPL at a price of $17 per token in August 2021.

Blockchain Cap bought half of their holdings in October 2021 and the other half in April 2022.

5. $FXS (Frax Finance)

Holders:

• fraximaxi.eth: 6.58 million $FXS (worth about $75 million)
• fraxcetacean.eth: 1.9 million $FXS (worth about $21.6 million)
• frax-ape.eth: 1.48 million $FXS (locked until 2025)
• Tetranode: 1.01 million $FXS (locked until 2027)
• Dragonfly Capital: 648,000 $FXS
• Arthur Hayes: 105,000 $FXS
• Alameda Research: 26,600 $FXS

Dragonfly Capital and fraximaxi.eth receive $FXS monthly from an address marked "private sale."

Here are some other investors and supporters of Frax Finance.

5. $CRV (Curve)

Holders:

• Founder Wallet #2-4: 396 million $CRV (worth about $467 million)
• Michael Egorov: 340 million $CRV (worth about $401 million)
• Genesis Trading: 2.8 million $CRV
• Tetranode: 2 million $CRV

Other smaller investors include Wintermute and Alameda.

Most of the CRV held by the founders will either unlock in the coming years or be locked as veCRV. There is also a large amount of CRV unlocking in the "investor wallets."

6. $DYDX (dYdX)

Holders:

• Wintermute: 650,000 $DYDX (worth about $20 million)
• Amber Group: 285,000 $DYDX
• Hashkey: 220,000 $DYDX
• CMS: 176,000 $DYDX
• DACM: 73,000 $DYDX
• Dragonfly: 514,000 $DYDX
• Delphi Digital: 220,000 $DYDX

CMS received their $DYDX from early investments in September 2021 (when each $DYDX was $15).

Dragonfly received their $DYDX in October 2021 (when each $DYDX was $23) and has not sold since.

Here is the list of investors in dYdX:

7. SNX (Synthetix)

Holders:

• Kain Warwick (founder): 12.9 million $SNX (worth about $33.8 million)
• Jump Trading: 2.4 million $SNX
• Genesis Trading: 407,000 $SNX
• a16z: 374,000 $SNX
• Tetranode: 104,000 $SNX

Other investors include Coinbase Ventures and Paradigm.

8. $MATIC (Polygon)

Holders:

• Republic Capital: 24.5 million $MATIC (worth about $37 million)
• Blockchain Capital: 17.7 million $MATIC (worth about $27 million)
• Jump Trading: 17.3 million $MATIC
• Dragonfly: 8.3 million $MATIC
• Wintermute: 3.7 million $MATIC
• Alameda: 2.9 million $MATIC

Dragonfly received their $MATIC from a Binance account in July 2022 (when the price of MATIC was $0.7).

On January 18 of this year, Republic Capital received the current 24 million MATIC from an address marked "Polygon Ecosystem Growth." Republic Capital had previously interacted with that wallet.