Conventional wisdom says that veteran holders don’t tout weakness. They accumulate through drawdowns, harvest profits in euphoria, and otherwise remain stationary while new cohorts flow out.
That model will be tested in late 2025. Across Ethereum, XRP, and parts of the DeFi stack, dormant whales are moving supply to exchanges as intermediate-term buyers flee, creating bifurcated distribution patterns that reveal which assets have true cost-based depth and which hold top-tier status for recent entrants.
Distribution without surrender
What makes this moment stand out is not the fact that it sells, as there are always rotating veterans, but the timing and structure.
As the price fell below $3,200 in mid-November, Ethereum whales accumulated 460,000 ETH, but Santiment’s age-of-spending indicator slowed instead of spiking.
This discrepancy is important. If total whale balances rise while movement of very old coins decreases, the pressure will come from holders in 3-10 year band-trimming positions, rather than ICO-era wallet dumps.
According to Glassnode data, this group of medium-term holders is selling around 45,000 ETH per day, a pace that contrasts with the panic-induced surge seen earlier this year when both short-term and long-term holders exited at the same time.
XRP tells the opposite story. Dormant circulation in the 365-day cohort surged to its highest level since July as whales transferred months worth of holdings to Binance, reactivating untapped supply from the previous rally.
The 100-day simple moving average of CryptoQuant’s Whale-to-Exchange Flows indicator peaked on November 6th, suggesting a multi-month upward trend and suggesting that the distribution is structural rather than temporary.
When combined with the reactivation of dormant supplies across both the 1-year and 3- to 12-month bands, the pattern is clear. XRP’s 2025 move has systematically pulled out old holders who were waiting for consolidation and now think an exit is a reasonable trade.
Although the whale exchange trend has subsided, it remains among the highest levels observed in 2025.
The tradeoffs built into these flows are simple. Ethereum whales are being replaced, with old holders selling harder as new buyers come in at a higher cost basis, and the lower realization cap rising even as prices remain stable.
There are whales of XRP in the market, with late entrants already holding most of the realized cap at high prices, leaving no absorption cushion if spot demand continues to wane.
Achieving a cap whose structure speaks for itself
The realized cap measures the total cost base of all coins and is weighted by the last moved price. For assets that have built a true cost-based ladder over multiple cycles, realized caps act as long-term support.
For assets that achieve most of their realization cap in one blowout, their structure is weak. Even if the top class sells, there will be very little left below.
According to Santiment, Ethereum’s realization cap was $391 billion as of November 18, absorbing distributions from old holders through new inflows, even as the price has fallen significantly.
Continued accumulation at various entry points means the network maintains a diversified cost base, putting short-term holders at greater risk if another drop materializes, but a veteran group cutting at $3,200 won’t collapse the entire structure as new entrants fill in the mid-level gaps.
XRP’s realization cap nearly doubled from $30 billion to $64 billion during the rally in late 2024, with $30 billion of that coming from buyers who entered within the past six months.
By early 2025, coins less than six months old accounted for 62.8% of realized caps, up from 23% and concentrated at cycle highs on a cost basis. Glassnode’s realized P&L has been trending downward since January, indicating that recent entrants are realizing losses rather than profits.
The materialized cap imbalance becomes a central vulnerability when whales send older coins to exchanges in November, reactivating dormant supply at the exact moment that latecomers go underwater.
Dormancy as a leading indicator
Dormant metrics track when previously idle supplies reenter active circulation. Spikes in these indicators do not automatically indicate a peak, but rather a change in the regime.
If holders who have survived previous cycles decide that the situation merits an exit, their moves are often made in advance of broader distributions, as they operate with longer time horizons and larger position sizes than the retail cohort.
The spike in Ethereum spending age in September and October was due to ICO-era wallets finally making a move after years of inactivity, but those moves occurred with momentum rather than panic.
By mid-November, whales holding 1,000 to 100,000 ETH had accumulated more than 1.6 million ETH, and the consumption age indicator subsided, meaning that the large flows were caused by large holders rotating rather than ancient wallets surrendering.
This creates a bottom. If the oldest cohort is not selling and the mid-term whales are buying, spot absorption can handle measured profit taking from the 3-10 year band.
The dormant pattern of XRP has been broken. The 365-day dormant circulation reached levels not seen since July, with repeated red spikes as old coins woke up and moved onto exchanges.
Reactivations became more frequent as the price struggled to maintain above $2, suggesting that holders who had been patient with the consolidation decided that the risk and reward no longer justified their patience.
The signal is clear when a surge in dormancy coincides with weakening spot demand and the highest level of realization caps. Veterans are allocating to markets that cannot be absorbed without breaking price support.
who has the bag
If Ethereum circulation continues at its current pace and 3-10 year holders sell 45,000 ETH every day while whales accumulate and realize the cap increase, the result is a market with more long-term support but increased short-term volatility.
If prices break below, new entrants at $3,000 to $3,500 will be the marginal sellers, while veterans have enough unrealized gains to weather further declines.
If XRP’s dormant supply continues to be reinvigorated and the realization cap remains concentrated among holders who have held it for more than six months, the path will become narrower.
With each wave of veteran distribution, recent buyers are pushed further under the water. These recent buyers account for the bulk of the realization ceiling, so their capitulation would disrupt the cost-based floor rather than simply test it.
Risk is self-reinforcing. Whales disperse, latecomers sell at a loss, cap declines materialize, and the next set of holders face an even weaker support structure.
For a protocol like Aave where dormancy data is still sparse, a single address that sold 15,396 AAVE on a downtrend and crystallized a loss of $1.54 million indicates a forced or fear-driven exit by recent entrants rather than long-term holders profiting.
If these losses occur while assets are trading below all major moving averages and DeFi’s broader risk appetite is deteriorating, late-cycle capital will exit rather than circulate.
Who decides the floor?
The central question is whether this cycle’s reinvigoration of dormant supply represents a healthy rotation, with veteran holders exiting at a profit and new capital flowing into a higher base, or whether it represents the beginning of a broader deleveraging as top-tier realized caps collapse under sustained distribution.
Ethereum data suggests that older coins are on the move. Still, the majority of recent capital flows have come from mid-term whale trimmings rather than ancient wallet dumps, and the rise in realized caps confirms that fresh money continues to flow on average.
XRP data suggests that 62.8% of the realized cap is allocated to buyers who entered within the past six months, while a surge in dormancy has led to an exodus of holders of more than a year.
The results depend on which cohort blinks first. As recent entrants sustain and spot demand stabilizes, veteran distribution will be absorbed and the market will build a higher floor by sales.
If the latecomers capitulate before the seasoned sellers have exhausted their strength, the realized ceiling will fall, the thickness of the cost base will evaporate, and the next support level will be well below the current price.
The whale is stirring. Whether it’s a rotation or a rout depends on who can catch the sell.