In brief

  • The number of Bitcoin active addresses has reached a figure last seen in 2018.
  • Rising public sentiment has caused the uptick in activity.
  • Bitcoin has flowed from whales to smaller holders in the past few years, the data showed

Bitcoin averaged over 1 million daily active addresses for the first time since January 2018, according to data from Bitcoin analytics firm Glassnode.

The metric calculates the number of unique addresses that were active in the network either as a sender or receiver. Only addresses that were active in successful transactions are counted, as per Glassnode.

The 1 million average daily mark—for active addresses—was last seen in the months following Bitcoin’s epic price rise to $20,000 in late 2017. The asset was largely written off by mainstream media at the time, but it seems to have staged a comeback.

The uptick in addresses coincided with a rise in Bitcoin prices in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, a chart from Glassnode shows the two metrics have been largely correlated since 2018, but not prior to that year.

Chart shows Bitcoin has crossed 1 million in daily active addresses on average. Image: Glassnode

The metric is indicative of growing public sentiment in the crypto market, especially as investors seek to hedge high inflation by investing in alternative assets such as Bitcoin and gold.

Big wallets are growing too. Lucas Nuzzi, the cofounder of crypto research firm DAR Crypto, remarked on Twitter that the number of addresses holding $10 or more of Bitcoin has hit an all-time high of 16.6 million addresses. The same goes for Ethereum, with 6 million addresses holding $10 or more of ETH.

He said this is “millions of addresses more than what was seen at the top of the 2017 bubble.”

Bitcoin whales losing market share

Meanwhile, Glassnode noted that the number of larger whales—referring to any addresses holding tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin—has steadily declined in the past few years.

“The percentage of supply owned by entities holding upwards of 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%,” the firm said.

The metrics show that, despite its 381 obituaries in mainstream media, Bitcoin’s very much still alive.