The holiday period on markets was dominated by another epic Bitcoin rally, three years after the first one.

If you waited until $US40,000 for your first market dabble, you’d be back in the red with prices reverting to around $US33k at time of print.

But investors who joined the party a month ago though, when BTC eclipsed its previous high of $US20k before doubling again, would still be sitting on some solid profits.

And according to Crypto Parrot, a platform based in Dublin, Ireland, big Bitcoin hodlers were doing just that.

Crypto Parrot’s core product is an online crypto trading simulator that allows new traders to test the market without putting real money up.

This week, the company published data which suggested that from December 11 to January 11 — when crypto prices doubled from $US20,0000 to $US40,000 — major Bitcoin accounts were heavily involved in the buy-side.

According to the ‘Parrot’, 36 of the top 100 largest Bitcoin addresses recorded inflows of 354,381 BTC.

Given that there’s only around 18.5m in circulation, and 3m of those have been lost, that’s a lot of Bitcoin.

While a feature of BTC is that the identity of individual holder accounts is hidden, those figures suggest that whoever is investing from those accounts has a lot more (fiat) capital to play with.

Another beneficiary of the latest bull market are the major crypto exchanges — which make the markets for retail traders to buy and sell.

Data from crypto research site The Block showed two of the largest exchanges — US-based Coinbase and Malta-based Binance — both broke their all-time highs for trading volume this week.

Coinbase posted $US9.56 billion in daily exchange volume, while Binance generated $30.66bn.

With the exchanges generating a transaction fee cut of each trade, the big Bitcoin whales aren’t the only ones getting rich from the latest Bitcoin boom.

At the same time, Crypto Parrot reckons there weren’t as many BTC ‘whales’ who sold into the buying frenzy to liquidate their positions back into US dollars.

While buying activity amounted to almost $US12bn, the Parrot said only eight addresses in the top 100 sold up, for a total of 20,333 coins.

The takeaway – serious Bitcoiners take their hodling seriously.

Crypto Parrot didn’t specify the timing of either the sales (or buys). So any whales who loaded up into the new year when the buying reached its zenith would’ve lost ground (for now).