The number of bitcoin whales has reached a new all-time high, as there are now 94,000 BTC addresses holding at least $1 million in bitcoin, and data shows that the number of addresses holdings between 1,00 and 10,000 BTC has been rising.
According to Glassnode, the number of millionaire addresses surged recently as each wallet that received mining rewards before the first bitcoin halving event now holds over $1 million worth of bitcoin, as block rewards back then were of 50 BTC.
This means that over 94,000 bitcoin addresses now belong to whales, but it’s worth noting some of these funds may be considered lost. Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator, has for example never moved any of the coinbase rewards he is believed to have received from mining in the early days.
While the number of bitcoin whales has increased partly because the price of the cryptocurrency has been surging, whales have also been accumulating BTC, as research from data analytics platform Whalemap has spotted that addresses holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC – between $41 million and $500 million – have been growing.
The trend is opposed to what was seen in previous bull cycles, in which these large addresses decreased.
As Cointelegraph reports, bitcoin whales accumulating shows high-net-worth investors are bullish on the cryptocurrency’s future, and reduces the risk of a large sell-off coming from large investors, which would put pressure on an overleveraged futures market.
The news outlet points out that the futures funding rate for both BTC and ETH has surpassed 0.15%, up from a normal funding rate of around 0.01%, indicating the majority of market participants are highly leveraged. If a sudden sell-off were to occur, it could be intensified by a potential long squeeze.
The price of bitcoin has been steadily increasing over the last few months as corporate adoption is surging. As reported the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, with over $7.3 trillion in assets under management, has started “dabble” in bitcoin according to its CIO Rick Rieder.
More recently, financial and investing advice company “The Motley Fool” revealed that it had decided to invest $5 million in Bitcoin, as it believes in the cryptocurrency’s potential over the long term to act as a productive hedge against inflation, and believes it will store “ store value more effectively than gold over the long term.”
Featured image via Pixabay.
