Bitcoin hits all-time high realized price as holders spread the wealth
Bitcoin’s supply continues to become more evenly distributed just as the cryptocurrency's "realized price" reaches a new milestone, Glassnode data shows.
The "realized price" of BitcoinBitcoin just hit an all-time high, coinciding with its circulating supply being bought up by smaller account holders now more than ever before.
Per data from crypto analytics firm Glassnode, Bitcoin’s realized price has never been greater, today hitting a new milestone of $6,000 per coin.
Realized price (as opposed to the current market price of roughly $11,800) is derived from realized capitalization, a metric invented by crypto data firm Coin Metrics in December 2018 that is used to measure the aggregate value of the Bitcoin network by multiplying each Bitcoin by the last time it moved. (Among other things, this is meant to account for lost coins now out of circulation.)
The Bitcoin supply is capped at 21 million. This means that unless there are drastic changes to Bitcoin's supply mechanism, there will never be more than 21 million BTC in circulation.
Due to Bitcoin's controlled supply mechanism, only around 18.59 million Bitcoin have already been minted (or 89% of the max supply). Despite this, because a good chunk of the Bitcoin supply has been lost beyond recovery, the actual amount of BTC available to use or trade is much lower than the circulating supply...
This is different from market capitalization, which is derived by multiplying each Bitcoin by the current price. Realized price, in turn, is calculated by dividing the realized cap by the circulating supply. Bitcoin hitting a fresh all-time high realized price (i.e. the average entry price for investors) could be a sign that investors are now getting in at higher prices.
At the same time, an increasing percentage of Bitcoin’s supply is being allocated to smaller-account walletswallets. In other words, the supply of Bitcoin is becoming more evenly distributed among its holders, as opposed to just a few investors holding large amounts, signaling stronger demand from retail (mom and pop) investors.
Control of #Bitcoin’s supply has been steadily shifting towards smaller entities.
The % of supply owned by entities holding ≤ 10 $BTC grew from 5.1% to 13.8% in 5 years, while the percent held by entities with 100-100k BTC declined from 62.9% to 49.8%.https://t.co/qbnCxejQHPpic.twitter.com/CHovVeBvXU
Nearly 14% of Bitcoin’s supply is held in wallets with 10 or fewer total Bitcoin (about $110,000 worth, at today’s prices), up from just 5% from five years ago, according to data from Glassnode. Of those accounts, wallets holding between 0.1 and 1 Bitcoin (roughly $1,000 to $11,000 worth) account for 3.6% of the circulating supply, and wallets holding 0.1 or less only account for 1%.
By comparison, accounts with 10 to 100,000 ($110,000 to $1.1 billion) Bitcoin have steadily decreased since Bitcoin’s inception. The share of supply among entities holding 10k-100k Bitcoin has declined the most dramatically in the past 5 years, falling from 19% to 12%. Wallets with 1,000 to 10,000 BTC have only shed 2% of their share, going from 24% to 22% over the same period (entities holding 100 to 1,000 BTC fell by a similar margin).
Interestingly, wallets with more than 100,000 Bitcoin have grown over the past five years, occupying nearly 13% of the supply from 8% five years prior. The majority of the growth came after the 2017 bubble, and is likely indicative of exchange reserves.
Per Longhash data, Coinbase, for instance, owns nearly 1 million Bitcoin in one wallet, while Huobi, Binance, and Bitfinex have wallets exceeding 200,000 Bitcoin.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Bitcoin stayed flat after the Bureau of Labor Statistics May nonfarm payrolls report showed a steady jobs market in May—an encouraging sign that the economy may be stabilizing.
Economists had forecast that the U.S. would add 125,000 jobs in May, according to Dow Jones. But this morning's Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that employers hired 139,000 works last month.
Bitcoin peaked above $105,000 earlier today, but has fallen 1.5% in the past 24 hours and is currently changing hands for $1...
The creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club wants to take control of ApeCoin, after years of distancing itself from the Ethereum token created for its ecosystem.
In a new ApeCoin Improvement Proposal idea, Yuga Labs CEO and co-founder Greg Solano (aka Garga) outlined potential plans to disband the ApeCoin DAO, eliminating all governance rights for APE token holders in the process.
The idea, which started gaining attention on social media earlier this week, would transition all assets and responsibil...
A new dad coached his wife through the birth of their first child on Tuesday, a baby girl they named Solana—all while joined by a group of crypto degens on the livestreaming meme coin launchpad Pump.fun, who were there, naturally, to trade the token commemorating the event.
“PUUUUUSHHHH,” traders of the PREGOWIFE token spammed the chat while the woman was hours into labor. Those watching the stream could only see the ceiling of the hospital room at the time but could hear everything. Viewers tol...
