Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s first cryptocurrency, continues to leave cryptocurrency exchanges as on-chain data continues to show signs of accumulation by long-term investors.
Data provided by the Glassnode blockchain analytics platform shows that the percentage of bitcoin that hasn’t moved for at least a year just hit a new all-time high of 67.037% and the percentage of BTC that hasn’t moved for at least five years hit a new all-time high of 28.269%.
Similarly, also the amount of supply last active at least 10 years ago reached a new all-time high of 2.64 million BTC that is currently worth nearly $61.5 billion.
As the graph above shows, a significant amount of bitcoin appears to have been sitting still since the early days of the network. The graph clearly shows a fairly steep increase in the number of coins that did not move for at least ten years in 2019, roughly ten years after the launch of the blockchain.
Since then, the metric has continued to increase considerably. We can reasonably assume that much of it is due to bitcoin wallets for which private keys were lost in the early days of the network, when it had little to no value and was often given away for free.
In fact, the curve already started to flatten in 2021, some ten years after Bitcoin broke a dollar in value. All of this data points to a dwindling real supply of bitcoin, as many of those old wallets with significant holdings are likely never to come back to life.
Also, the number of bitcoin addresses that hold at least 1 BTC, worth $23,200 at press time, reached a new all-time high of 982,932.
This suggests that hoarding is picking up at the retail level. Glassnode data also shows that in the last 24 hours, $620.8 million was sent to cryptocurrency exchanges and $678.5 million was withdrawn, resulting in a net outflow of $57.6 million.
A net outflow is believed to be a bullish sign, as investors taking their assets off cryptocurrency exchanges typically do so for long-term safekeeping, safe from hacks and bankruptcies. Also, coins that are not on an exchange are also coins that are not immediately available for sale.
The findings follow a recent report indicating that more bitcoin has lay dormant in the past ten years, leaving far less available on exchanges.
