Bitcoin’s long-term holders continue to keep their cryptocurrency close, despite its declining value — 59 percent of BTC’s circulating supply still hasn’t moved in at least one year.
Generally, these trends are in-line with shrinking Bitcoin trading volumes, reports research firm Delphi Digital.
Still, the firm highlighted 220,000 BTC (worth roughly $1.6 billion at current prices) bought way back in November 2017 — the start of peak Bitcoin-mania — that hasn’t moved at all since then. Surely, some strong hands.
There’s less new money entering the cryptocurrency space
Trading activity spiked at the end of October, when Bitcoin’s price last pushed above $9,000, but volumes had reached six-month lows by the end of November.
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“Declining volume has been the trend since the high back in June, a symptom of a general decrease in new money entering the space,” said Delphi Digital analysts.
In fact, Bitcoin’s month-over-month volume has dropped by 9.4 percent across the top cryptocurrency exchanges, with the largest decline coming from spot USD markets.
The firm again noted this means it’s possible there’s less capital entering and exiting the space.
Binance and Huobi attract most of the inflowing Bitcoin
As for where the inflowing Bitcoin goes, major exchanges Binance and Huobi persist as the industry’s dominant trading venues. Together, they account for over 50 percent of BTC deposits every month since August.
Analysts noted that OKEx and Huobi saw “strong increases” since the beginning of August, but highlighted that a portion of the latter’s activity was actually a byproduct of a cryptocurrency-fueled Ponzi scheme known as PlusToken.
“The worst monthly decline since the same month last year definitely added insult to injury to the crypto market’s ongoing drawdown. Fading catalysts and sentiment are partially to blame, but one of the real culprits is the lack of new buyer demand,” said Delphi Digital.
“Often times, it seems as if capital is just being reshuffled among existing player who can ignite violent market moves given the minuscule size of this market, so a renewed enthusiasm among investors is going to be required for bitcoin (and crypto at large) to reverse its downward trend,” it added.
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