Bitcoin (BTC) has crossed a significant threshold this month — and while it does not involve price, it does involve “millions.”
Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode confirms that as of May 18, there are over one million addresses which hold at least 1 BTC.
It was a long time coming and received much attention on social media, and the time is finally here — there are one million entities which own a whole bitcoin.
These “wholecoiners” have been steadily accruing since mid-2021, Glassnode shows, and the upward trend in 1 BTC wallets has seen almost no reversal since.
In 2022, however, the trend accelerated, having started the year with 814,000 wholesalers and finishing it with 978,000 — an increase of 20%.
Reacting, Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin firm Blockstream, made the case for “hyperbitcoinization” soon to come.
Should the existing trend continue, he argued, BTC price growth would soon make buying it not only a luxury, but something unattainable altogether.
This would happen, he tweeted, “because 10mil people trying to buy 1 BTC over a few years would push the price out of reach.”
“And many current hodlers are not selling,” he continued.
As Cointelegraph reported, existing Bitcoin investors who are long-term market participants have broadly resisted the urge to sell through the recent bear market and subsequent price recovery.
At the same time, an uptick in short-term holders, or speculators, in 2023 has got some excited about the birth of a new Bitcoin bull market.
Glassnode data meanwhile shows that at the other end of the spectrum, whale wallets have become stagnant.
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