Diar: Whales store $36bn worth BTC

Blockchain analytics firm Diar reported that storing Bitcoins have significantly increased over the past year as 26 percent of the circulation volume now belongs to different large-volume addresses. According to Coinmarketcap.com, Bitcoin is currently trading above $8,600. The report determined that the balance in Bitcoin wallets with 1000-10,000 BTC has increased by seven percent compared to the figure a year ago.

Diar stated: 

“Over 26% of circulating supply, $36Bn worth of Bitcoin, now sit in addresses that have a balance of 1000-10k BTC. In August 2018 when Bitcoin was also at $8000, these ‘Firm Size’ addresses held under 20% of the circulating supply showing a sharp accumulation of nearly 7% in less than a year.” 

The analytics, however, has excluded 96 addresses owned by Coinbase. Coinbase had transferred 856,000 Bitcoins to its new cold storage facilities last December. Yet, the sum went down by 11 percent and now the wallet addresses are storing 760,000 Bitcoins.

Diar added: 

“A surge in the 1-10k Bitcoin address bracket in December 2018 was likely the result of Coinbase shifting approximately 5% of supply into new cold storage security facilities.”

The number of Bitcoin addresses with funds between 1-10,000 BTC spiked when the value of the coin was below $3,500 in last December. Since then, these addresses have gathered 1.2 million Bitcoins. The storage in retail size wallets which holds between 0-100 BTC, also saw an increase of 126,000 Bitcoins over the past six months.

Diar concluded:

“Overall, these [retail] addresses hold, as of date, 38% of Bitcoins circulating supply. Accounting for inflation, however, this segment remains fairly stable and unlikely the driving cause of recent price spikes.”