Is Smart Money Exiting? Whales Dump Solana, Aave, and Aster

Whales are offloading significant altcoins, testing the crypto market’s already fragile state and hindering its recovery.

The “smart money” retreat comes amid a broad market downturn.

The total crypto market capitalization has shed over 5% in the past 24 hours, dropping to $3.67 trillion, according to CoinGecko data. Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and other major altcoins are posting losses of between 6% and 9% as they follow Bitcoin‘s steady decline, Decrypt previously reported.

The sell-off is widespread across asset types.

A Solana whale that had successfully traded meme coins in the past sold 61,845 SOL, worth approximately $11.5 million, over a four-hour period on Thursday, according to blockchain data.

A whale who nearly faced liquidation in April while using a looped borrow strategy to go long on AAVE has now opted to sell, EmberCN, a popular on-chain analytics account, tweeted on Thursday.

Over eight hours, the whale sold 88,227 AAVE worth $19.8 million, according to on-chain analytics platform Arkham, to repay all outstanding loans and exit the leveraged position.

Systematic selling is also hitting relatively newer tokens.

A whale that previously held 64.535 million ASTER has been systematically transferring its holdings to the Binance exchange, according to on-chain data. In the past week alone, it moved 58.608 million ASTER, worth $92.25 million, and appears to be nearing a full exit.

While transfer to exchanges is commonly considered as an intention to sell in the crypto space, it could also be done for margin requirements or staking as well. Hence, the recent Aster transfer is not a straightforward profit-taking transfer.

Another entity that participated in the World Liberty Financial public sale and later accumulated Aster has now transferred its 8.282 million token holding back to Bybit on Thursday.

With the recent market volatility and extended downtrend, the Aster whales have an unrealized loss of more than $5 million.

The sentiment is reflected in the prediction market Myriad, launched by Decrypt’s parent company DASTAN, where users place just a 6% chance on Aster hitting $4 in November.

“It’s not uncommon to see whales offload or de-risk after last Friday’s major market drawback,” Deebs DeFi, a pseudonymous on-chain analyst at Bubblemaps, told Decrypt, adding that, “They may be fearful of a future black swan event.“

The coordinated selling across different wallets and assets paints a picture of large players reducing exposure, taking profits where available, and cutting losses where necessary, underscoring the persistent risk-off sentiment.