Recently, I’ve been monitoring on-chain activity of a certain DEX and discovered an interesting phenomenon—whales are continuously buying CAKE, while retail investors are rushing to sell.

Looking at the data from the past 30 days, non-exchange private addresses holding between 100,000 and 1 million CAKE have collectively increased their holdings by about 4.2 million. This is no small feat, indicating that genuine smart money is actively positioning. What’s particularly interesting is the recent mid-December wave of new activity—after a DEX launched a prediction market and integrated the $U stablecoin ecosystem, large wallets have frequently been withdrawing funds directly from the DEX. The logic behind these "private smart money" addresses is quite clear.

The first perspective is deflation. Data from November 2025 confirms that CAKE has experienced 26 consecutive months of net deflation, with the total supply decreasing to around 350 million. Think about it—continuous deflation reaching a certain stage will trigger a qualitative change, and large holders clearly see this turning point.

The second perspective is the hard cap on supply. The maximum supply limit of 450 million completely alleviates concerns among whales about unlimited issuance. This kind of certainty is quite rare in the crypto space.

There’s also a more strategic consideration—governance value. Now that a certain DEX has expanded to new chains like Arbitrum and Base, veCAKE voting rights become especially valuable, directly influencing emission strategies across chains. Private whales are increasing their holdings to compete for ecosystem influence, which is a long-term strategic move.

The current situation is as follows: although the price fluctuates slightly around $1.80, and there was about a 10% correction in late December due to overall market sentiment, the true whale groups (excluding exchanges and contracts) are not panicking. Instead, they are taking advantage of this correction, systematically "accumulating in batches" within the $1.70 to $1.80 range. In other words, they are using the pullback as an opportunity.