Whales accumulated 13m TON while the price was falling

The detention of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, increased the Toncoin selling pressure while large whales continued their accumulation.

According to data provided by IntoTheBlock, 92% of the Toncoin (TON) supply is held by whales and investors holding over 0.1% of the asset’s 5.1 billion total supply. The remaining 8% of TON tokens are currently sitting in retail addresses, holding less than 0.1% of the total supply.

Data shows that large TON holders accumulated 13.14 million tokens as the asset’s price plunged below the $6 mark — hitting a local bottom of $5.32 — on Aug. 25. 

The Toncoin price plunged 20% after Durov was arrested in France where he might face up to 20 years in prison. TON’s market cap suddenly decreased by $3.8 billion, making it fall from the eighth to 11th spot among leading cryptocurrencies.

However, TON soon started to recover some of its losses as the crypto community started showing support for the Telegram founder. 

Toncoin is up by 2% in the past 24 hours and is trading at $5.62 at the time of writing. The asset’s market capitalization surpassed the $14 billion mark with a daily trading volume of $1.2 billion.

Notably, TON briefly touched an intraday high of $5.93 earlier today but couldn’t hold longer due to increased selling pressure.

Data shows that Toncoin is slightly oversold at this price point with a Relative Strength Index of 44. High price fluctuations could be normal for TON as fear surrounds the asset.