July 4 (Cointime) - According to crypto analytics firm Santiment, large Bitcoin holders, known as whale and shark addresses, have been accumulating BTC at a higher rate than usual over the past seven weeks.

These cohorts have purchased 154,500 BTC worth over $4.75 billion since late April, with their pace of accumulation accelerating following news of BlackRock's attempt to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

Santiment is also monitoring Litecoin's pre-halving rally, which has seen the peer-to-peer payments network rise 42% in the last two weeks, and warns that mainstream FOMO may signal that the hype is ready to fizzle out. At the time of writing, Litecoin is trading for $113.21, up over 6% in the last 24 hours.