The number of bitcoin-storing wallets is increasing

Research company Glassnode reports that over the past year, the number of wallets that store at least 1 bitcoin has increased by 10% to 784,000.

Analysts emphasized that this key metric shows the number of retail traders. Since the beginning of 2015, the number of wallets that store at least 1 bitcoin has doubled, and, apparently, the interest in the first cryptocurrency continues to increase.

“The steady growth in the number of addresses is the result of the accumulation of bitcoin by retail customers. At the same time, the increasing number of wallets with large balances indicates the adoption of the first cryptocurrency as a means of storing wealth, ”said Connor Abendschein, a researcher at Digital Assets Data.

Analysts also noted that the increase in the number of wallets is not slowing down even due to the significant volatility of the price of the first cryptocurrency. For the first half of 2019, the Bitcoin exchange rate rose from $ 3,600 to $ 13,880, and by the end of last year it fell to $ 6,430, but this did not prevent the increase in the number of wallets.

“Wallet balances show the number of unique users well. The increase in the number of unique Bitcoin addresses suggests a constant distribution of the number of BTC, ”said Yassine Elmandjra, an analyst with Ark Invest.

However, the “whales” still occupy a leading position in the market. Wallets with balances from 1 to 1,000 BTC store 42.1% of the total bitcoin stock. At the same time, at the end of 2017, only 37.9% of all issued coins were stored on such wallets.

Note that the number of bitcoins on wallets of cryptocurrency exchanges reached 10% of the total issue (more than 1.8 million BTC). Over the past three years, this figure has grown 7 times.