In brief

  • The number of Bitcoin addresses holding between 10-100 Bitcoin has shrunk in the last month.
  • Glassnode data shows these addresses have dropped by about 3,000 since December 14, 2020.
  • This might be due to early Bitcoin adopters selling some of their Bitcoin.

Large Bitcoin addresses have been picking up more and more Bitcoin in recent months, but medium-sized addresses have been declining at a rapid pace since Christmas. 

According to data from Glassnode, the number of addresses holding between 10 and 100 Bitcoin ($373,000 - $3.7 million) dropped by about 3,000 between December 14, 2020 and January 14, 2021. 

This decrease in medium-sized Bitcoin addresses only represents a 2% drop, but the trend is an anomaly. Bitcoin addresses that hold over 100 Bitcoin, or over 1,000 Bitcoin, are both trending upwards. 

“We see whales growing at the expense of medium sized investors,” Ingo Fiedler, co-founder of the Blockchain Research Lab, told Decrypt

“That is perfectly in line with the narrative that institutions buy large stacks of Bitcoin while earlier adopters, that are mostly individuals, sell part of their stack to rebalance their portfolio after the price increase,” Fiedler added. 

It’s also possible that some of these medium-sized Bitcoin whales have become larger Bitcoin whales by increasing their stack. This would show a decline in the number of accounts with 10-100 Bitcoin and growth in the number of accounts with more than 100 Bitcoin, which we are currently seeing.

In the meantime, Bitcoin’s price is struggling to stay above the $38,000 mark as it looks to either reclaim its recent all-time high—or see the end of the rally.

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