The price of Bitcoin has risen over 220 percent since January — but long-term holders are keeping their cool.
Instead, Bitcoin‘s stellar second quarter actually attracted a steady stream of new sellers to the market, reports independent research firm Delphi Digital .
“The active portion of [Bitcoin] supply, which we categorize as the coins that have moved within the last three months, is beginning to slightly increase,” said Delphi Digital. “The new sellers are actually mostly individuals who’ve been holding for three-to-six months.”
21.5 percent of circulating Bitcoin hasn’t moved in five years
Delphi Digital determines how long Bitcoin has been held by sorting its “ Unspent Transaction Output ” (UXTO) data. The length of time an amount of Bitcoin stays put is referred to as its “UXTO age.”
The cumulative UXTO age of all the Bitcoins tells us how long the overall market has been holding. Bitcoin‘s UXTO age rises as holders refuse to sell, and it falls as more of its circulating supply is used regularly.
According to Delphi Digital’s analysis, 60 percent of Bitcoin‘s circulating supply hasn’t moved in at least a year, as indicated on the chart by the green line.
The amount of Bitcoin untouched in over five years (shown by the light blue line) has also steadily expanded. Over 21.5 percent of BTC’s supply has not moved in at least five years.
“This naturally leads us to wonder who the current sellers are in this market,” said Delphi Digital.
Traders have sent lots of Bitcoin to Binance
To gauge market sentiment, Delphi Digital checked the amount of Bitcoin that has flowed through major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Bitfinex .
This kind of activity grew dramatically since January. In particular, Bitcoin outflows more-than-doubled between March and April.
Delphi Digital explained the surge in Bitcoin outflows makes sense, as those who recently bought may seek to take their cryptocurrency off-exchange in preparation to hold. The rise in outflows also coincided with the beginning of April’s price rally .
Binance appears to be the main choice for Bitcoin holders looking to make deposits. Delphi Digital noted Binance accounted for a whopping 47 percent of inflowing BTC last month, up from 24 percent in the first quarter of 2019.
As for what comes next for the cryptocurrency market, Delphi Digital expressed that some may see the recent run past $13,000 (and the eventual pull-back) as a “blow off top,” which could see Bitcoin move side-ways for a while. This might create opportunity for an “alt season.”
“A move of this size and concentration to any exchange would suggest selling, but because it’s Binance, it leaves open the possibility that individuals are looking to move into alts now,” suggested the firm.
“Bitcoin is certainly still in the driver’s seat, so trying to time an alt rally could leave you catching a falling knife. It makes more sense to instead forgo some early upside on alts and wait for a strong confirmation,” warned Delphi Digital.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only, and should not be considered investment advice.
Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin trading volume hits 111-day low’
Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.
Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Marie Curie used to say: Let’s get this bread!
Bitcoin price
We closed the day, August 18 2019, at a price of $10,345. That’s a minor 1.10 percent increase in 24 hours, or $112. It was the highest closing price in one day.
We’re still 48 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).
Bitcoin market cap
Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $185,022,920,955. It now commands 69 percent of the total crypto market.
Bitcoin volume
Yesterday’s volume of $12,999,813,869 was the lowest in one hundred and eleven days, 15 percent below the year’s average, and 71 percent below the year’s high.
Bitcoin transactions
A total of 276,239 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 17 percent below the year’s average and 38 percent below the year’s high.
Bitcoin transaction fee
Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.59. That’s $3.12 below the year’s high of $3.71.
Bitcoin distribution by address
As of now, there are 17,840 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.4 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.4 percent, and the top 1000 34.4 percent.
Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin
With a market capitalization of $185 Billion, Boeing has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.
Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million
On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.
He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 88.4 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $88,969 by now, according to dickline.info.
Bitcoin on Twitter
Yesterday 14,246 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 26.3 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.
Most popular posts about Bitcoin
This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:
This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:
And this was yesterday’s top submission on Hacker News about Bitcoin:
Bitcoin’s race to outrun the quantum computer (decrypo)
print(randomGoodByePhraseForSillyHumans)
My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.
$356 million in cryptocurrency stolen in first three months of 2019
Cryptocurrency thieves earned at least $356 million in the first quarter of 2019, which could see the industry face a billion-dollar money laundering problem by year’s end.
Payments from US-based exchanges to offshore cryptocurrency wallets also increased 46 percent over the last two years, analytics firm CipherTrace reports with new research .
“Once these payments reach exchanges and wallets in other parts of the globe, they fall off the radar of US authorities,” said CiperTrace. “This highlights a major regulatory blind spot for the US.”
Five cryptocurrency exchanges hacked
Thieves stole $16 million from long-serving digital asset exchange Cryptopia in January. Singapore-based exchanges CoinBene and DragonEx lost a combined $46 million dollars worth of Ethereum-based tokens through attacks disclosed in March.
CoinBene is a particularly curious case. Following original reports, CoinBene’s parent company claimed user funds were 100-percent secure – and promised any potential victims would be compensated should that change.
CipherTrace investigated by checking CoinBene’s ‘hot wallets.’ It discovered $105 million in cryptocurrency had been sent to other platforms during the period of the alleged hack (March 25 to 28), mostly to embattled exchange EtherDelta .
“We can confirm that over $100 million has moved recently, but a portion came back to CoinBene’s cold wallet, so all of that movement was probably not stolen currency,” CipherTrace’s spokesperson told Hard Fork. “However, we have traced a significant portion moving through EtherDelta which we continue to monitor as part of CipherTrace’s ongoing investigation.”
South Korean exchange Bithumb was also rocked by third attack , when $13 million worth of EOS was lost in March. Later reports suspected a further $6 million in Ripple had also been taken. The company later described the event as an “accident involving insiders.”
Coinbin, another South Korean exchange, was forced into bankruptcy last quarter. Roughly $26 million had been lost, which it later blamed on an embezzling insider.
Crazy cryptocurrency conspiracies to bring regulatory tsunami
CipherTrace’s report tentatively categorized the $190 million QuadrigaCX mystery as theft, rather than an exit scam or exchange hack.
Researchers cited evidence provided by auditing firm Ernst & Young that showed curious holes in QuadrigaCX’s official story, including 14 ‘fake accounts’ used to trade large amounts of cryptocurrency on other exchanges.
“Ultimately, thieves and scam artists will need to launder the cryptocurrency stolen or scammed in Q1 2019,” warned researchers. “Furthermore, this will require innovative new ways to cash out, and turn all that tainted virtual money into clean, spendable fiat currencies.”
Analysts recognized 17 countries (plus the European Union) within jurisdiction of the Financial Stability Board that had at least some regulatory measures (or standard-setting bodies) to deal with digital assets.
CipherTrace emphasized cross-border, inter-exchange payments in traditional finance require money transfer services to keep five-year records of currency exchanges greater than $1,000. The same is expected for money transfers over $3,000.
Cryptocurrency businesses are not bound by the same rules. “The gaps in these regulations present risky avenues that can be exploited by money launderers and terrorist organizations,” said CipherTrace.
“Specifically, the money laundering potential of crypto-to-crypto exchanges and privacy coins are not well understood by lawmakers attempting to regulate digital assets based on the physics of fiat currency,” it added.
The firm warns a “tsunami” of tough, global anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing regulations will “roll over” the cryptocurrency ecosystem throughout the coming year in response.
Coincidentally, new rules for Finland came into play today , which essentially force the industry to adopt strict anti-money laundering rules.
Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .
