Around 55% of all Bitcoins are held in wallets whilst more than 30% is either lost or unmined, according to Diar – a weekly publication focused on digital currency, assets, payments and regulations.
Also, one-third of Bitcoins are in wallets that have never made any transactions which could indicate that the owners of these wallets either lost their private keys, lowering real supply or that the holders are true cryptocurrency believers, it adds.
About 42% in wallets with more than 200 BTC did not cash in when Bitcoin peaked to nearly $20,000 late last year. Instead, 27% of these Bitcoin wallets increased their BTC holdings.
The faith in Bitcoin
“Long-term investors are keeping the faith in the king of cryptocurrencies despite the bears market in 2018,” Diar states. “Over 87% of Bitcoins are stored in wallets that are above 10 Bitcoins. These coins sit in only 0.7% of all Bitcoin addresses.”
Wallets with over 100 BTC are held in under 0.1% of all addresses. However, this represents 62% of all Bitcoin in circulation.
“The top-heavy ownership of Bitcoins, of course, does not indicate a select number of wealthy individuals solely, however, as the largest wallets are owned by cryptocurrency exchanges that are holding the coins on behalf of clients,” Diar says.
About $4.2 billion worth of Bitcoin – 3.8% of the total supply of BTC – is managed by major crypto exchanges in five wallets.
In April, Chainalysis released a report saying its possible that 30% of the Bitcoin supply is lost and unmined. It also said it believes that 33.3% of the total Bitcoin supply is controlled by 1,600 individuals.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.