What Crypto Whales Are Buying for Potential Gains in January 2026
You can sense it as 2025 wraps up the game’s changing. The whales aren’t just tossing cash at anything that moves. Now, they’re careful. They’re hunting for projects they actually trust, the ones they think will take off when 2026 rolls around. Hype’s not enough anymore. They want real opportunities, and when they spot one, they dive in headfirst.
Bitcoin is still their anchor. You look at on-chain data, and it’s clear whales grab more BTC during those boring, sideways stretches, not when everyone’s chasing the next big move. They’re not gambling on quick spikes. They’re locking in for the long run, convinced Bitcoin's still cheap compared to what global liquidity might look like in 2026, especially if central banks loosen things up again.
Ethereum’s right up there too. Big wallets keep adding ETH and a lot of it flows into staking. It’s not just the price they’re after. It’s the combo of yield and scarcity. More ETH keeps getting locked up, new supply isn’t flooding the market, and if demand wakes up, you get a classic supply squeeze. That’s what these whales are betting on.
Outside of the big names they’re looking at a few select Layer-2 and infrastructure tokens. But not just any project. The focus is on stuff that actually matters: scaling data availability real-world use. You see whales picking up tokens tied to Ethereum rollups, cross-chain messaging, on-chain settlement layers the kind of tech that keeps the whole ecosystem running.
There’s another angle too privacy coins. As regulators tighten their grip, some whales are quietly moving into privacy-focused assets. It’s a hedge a way to get ahead of growing financial surveillance.
What aren’t they buying? Memecoins, wild speculation, anything that smells like hype. That era’s over for now. Instead, these big players are setting up for asymmetric gains real value solid fundamentals.
Going into January 2026 you see patience and discipline everywhere. The message from the whales is pretty clear.
