TL;DR
- Large wallets (10M-100M DOGE) sold nearly one billion coins since mid-October.
- The break of the key support level at $0.18 triggered automatic liquidations and a cascade effect.
- Trading volume surged 90%, showing divergence between whales (selling) and retail (buying).
Over the last week, Dogecoin has experienced intense selling pressure, driving the meme cryptocurrency to a low of $0.1657. This drop, representing a 4.75% decrease in 24 hours and surpassing the general market contraction (3.7%), has wiped billions from its market capitalization, which fell from $55.7 billion on October 28 to $25.1 billion on November 4.
The main catalyst for this decline is that Dogecoin whales are actively selling their positions. According to data from an analytics platform, wallets holding between 10 and 100 million DOGE have shed approximately one billion coins during this period.
Analyst Ali Martinez pointed out that this trend of outflows from whale addresses has been ongoing since mid-October. These sales do not appear to be panic-driven but rather systematic and planned profit-taking by early investors and large operators who accumulated positions at previous prices.
Technical Breakdown Accelerates Decline
The decline intensified rapidly once DOGE broke the crucial support level of $0.18. This technical failure triggered a cascade of automatic selling and the execution of predetermined exit strategies by numerous algorithmic trading systems on major exchanges.
Leveraged positions amplified the turmoil. In a single day, over $1.36 billion in cryptocurrency derivatives were liquidated across the market, with Dogecoin being a disproportionate part of these forced closures. It was reported that a single trader made over $36 million in profits by selling DOGE and Ethereum during the drop.
Interestingly, as prices fell, daily trading volume increased by 90%, reaching an average of $3.9 billion. This surge indicates divergent market sentiment: while Dogecoin whales are selling, smaller retail traders appear to be viewing the dip as a buying opportunity.
This disconnect between large players and retail reflects different investment strategies in a market facing headwinds, such as rising interest rates and regulatory uncertainty, which reduce the appetite for speculative assets like meme coins.
