I think that even though there could be some overlap, the topic of whales is a bit of a different topic, even though someone who is really able to buy and hold in the real early days (such as in early 2013 or prior to 2013, or even prior to 2012 could have really become a whale with a fairly modest investment level of perhaps less than $10k investment in the real early days, but surely depends on what we might call a whale.. Do we need more than 1,000 BTC or would 500BTC be enough? I know that these numbers are changing, but even by 2013, there would have needed to have been maybe a bit more than $10k invested to get more than 10k coins.. perhaps in the ballpark of $13-$15k. . and sure maybe we could say more than 1,000 coins is a whale, but I am not sure about 500-1,000 coins.. perhaps currently bordering upon whale status.. but not quite there yet.
It could well be that in 10-15 years, then having more than 100 BTC might start to be getting to whale status.. so maybe it partly depends upon when you do the assessment of whale status and it seems to be a bit of a moving target, even though there are ways to attempt to get some kinds of bearing upon making such "whale status" assessments.
Today it costs around 40 million $ to buy 1000 BTC while back in 2015 when price of Bitcoin was around 200$ there wont be much investment needed to buy 1000 BTC. The real point is today there is majority running after Bitcoin because of its success but back in 2013 or before that there are not many who are giving importance to Bitcoin.
I cam to know about Bitcoin first in 2017, it took me 2 years to do first transaction in Bitcoin and further 2 more years to understand that there is immense benefit in HODLING the Bitcoin. You might be one of whales as you full fill both criteria 1) you bought BTC when it was in its early days 2) You are still a HODLER
Of course, folks who are newer to BTC and who are likely either in their accumulation stage or in their early accumulation stage, should be pleased to accumulate during dips, accumulate when the BTC price fails to go up or seems to be static, and it can take a long time to accumulate enough BTC, and maybe you have to spend 10 years or more accumulating before you really start to feel comfortable that you have enough.
I have already made the claim several times in recent times that anyone investing $100 per week for the next 10 years is likely not going to be able to accumulate a whole BTC and maybe not even half of a BTC, but at least there are greater chances of accumulating half of a BTC than a whole BTC, but if you had already gotten started, and maybe you are no spring chicken anymore WatChe. .and congratulations, you are coming up upon your having been registered on the forum for a whole bitcoin cycle.. and if you have been investing into bitcoin for that whole time, then that would have had been helpful too.
Just think about it,
a $100 per week invested into bitcoin over the last 4 years would have had resulted in more than 1 BTC (at 1.0505), but if you had been wanting to double the quantity of your BTC holdings in a similar amount of time, you may well need to increase your investment rate by 4x to 6x or maybe even more.
It's not only that you know Bitcoin but also the realization that its not just buy on dips and sell when price goes up. If I talk about myself then it took my sometime to understand that act.
If you can increase your investment to extent that can give you 1 Bitcoin in the long run then its good but if you don't have that much money then invest as much as you can. It will also give you good result over your investment.