The number of addresses containing at least 1 BTC is growing steadily, as evidenced by Glassnode data.
To date, there are more than 784 thousand such addresses, their growth since the beginning of last year amounted to 11%.
“This steady growth is the result of the accumulation of retail customers,” said Connor Abandshine, an analyst with Digital Assets Data.
The expert also noted that such dynamics may indicate the adoption of bitcoin as a means of preserving value.
The chart above shows that the upward trend continued despite significant fluctuations in the price of digital gold. CoinDesk analyst Omkar Godbowl emphasized that such investor behavior is also characteristic of the gold market. The attractiveness of this protective asset is always high, regardless of the short-term fluctuations in its price.
However, the cryptocurrency market is still dominated by large players. In particular, 42% of the total Bitcoin supply is in the hands of investors holding between 1,000 and 1,000,000 BTC. For comparison, at the end of 2017, this indicator was 37.9%.
Also note that an increase in the number of unique addresses does not necessarily mean an influx of new investors. One market participant can store 1000 BTC, for example, for 1000 addresses.
Recall, the other day, the American billionaire Ray Dalio said that bitcoin is ineffective as a means of exchange and preservation of value.