Nearly 800 thousand accounts have balances equivalent to or greater than 1 BTC, as the next halving of the main cryptocurrency approaches. Despite the volatility of the Bitcoin market, users show a tendency to accumulate the cryptocurrency.
The number of addresses with balances of at least 1 BTC reached its all-time high last March, according to data from the blockchain ecosystem monitoring platform, Glassnode. The ascending line of the graph from the data provider shows that almost 800,000 accounts had one or more BTC until March 12th, when they reached the milestone, and an additional 13,258 until April 9th.
Data from Glassnode also show that in late 2017, when the Bitcoin price hit an all-time high of around USD 20,000, there were about 720,000 accounts with balances of 1 BTC. Subsequently, when the price of the pioneering cryptocurrency dropped in 2018, a minimum of 690,000 addresses held 1 BTC.
Taking into account that there were about 550 thousand wallets with at least 1 BTC at the beginning of 2017, the data show that users tend to accumulate the cryptocurrency despite the volatility of the market and the price drop of last March 12th. On that date, the price of Bitcoin fell from USD 10,000 to USD 4,185 per unit before rebounding above USD 6,700 at the time of writing this article.
It is important to note that a Bitcoin address does not necessarily represent a single user. A user can create multiple addresses and conduct various transactions from them, to maintain his or her anonymity.
Between January and March 2020, another category of addresses achieved a significant growth: those addresses with at least 0.01 BTC. This is another reference to understand the increasing interest from the world in Bitcoin, less than a month before its next halving occurs.
Besides, users have been withdrawing funds from cryptocurrency exchanges, which may be a sign that they want to keep them in their accounts until after the halving scheduled for May takes place, according to Glassnode. However, the behavior of network users could also indicate that there is a strong tendency to take refuge in the cryptocurrency during times of economic and political instability. There are also recent Indicators that show that the Bitcoin market is ridding itself of panic sentiments.
On the other hand, Glassnode data also reveal that big Bitcoin investors, known in the ecosystem as whales, are accumulating an increasing amount of BTC as the halving of the first cryptocurrency, scheduled for May, approaches.
According to an analysis that the firm Glassnode conducted, there are currently almost 1,850 entities or operators that have at least 1,000 BTC in their accounts, which confirms that whales are in the accumulation phase. The figure had not reached that level since the end of 2017 when Bitcoin had a price of USD 20,000. However, the behavior of large investors at that time was one of capitulation, that is, of selling and making a profit.
By Alexander Salazar
