Prices of several gaming tokens increased sharply on Friday, a surge that can be broadly attributed to the overall recent growth in cryptocurrency markets but more specifically to the recent Bitcoin (BTC) price rally to a local top of $64,000.
Profit-taking by BTC holders peaked on Wednesday, making it likely that these investors have realized gains and rotated these profits into other sectors in the market such as gaming tokens.
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Gaming tokens such as GALA (GALA), The Sandbox (SAND), Enjin Coin (ENJ), Beam (BEAM), and ApeCoin (APE) have noted a price increase between 2% and 9% on Friday.
The rally in gaming tokens is likely catalyzed by the rotating of capital by market participants who realized profits in Bitcoin on a large scale. Santiment data shows that on Wednesday BTC traders realized $5.54 billion in gains, the largest profit-taking event in the history of Bitcoin.
BTC Network Realized Profit/Loss. Source: Santiment
This may have catalyzed gains in several crypto sectors, gaming tokens included.
Gaming tokens gains on Friday. Source: Coingecko
A key catalyst for this recent upside move is whale activity. Data from Lookonchain shows that a large wallet address changed their position from PEPE to Shiba Inu (SHIB), Decentraland (MANA), The Sandbox (SAND) and GALA (GALA). The whale sold their 1.97 trillion PEPE holdings, worth $6.07 million, at a profit of $3.49 million.
The wallet address then accumulated 75.9 billion SHIB (worth $893,000), 1.6 million MANA (worth $1.07 million), 2.43 million SAND (worth $1.48 million), and 36.88 million GALA ($1.46 million). Sustained buying pressure from large wallet addresses is likely to drive further gains in gaming tokens.