Cryptocurrency investors have been withdrawing Bitcoin ($BTC) from cryptocurrency exchanges at the “most aggressive rate in history” as total exchange outflows in June peaked at 151,000 BTC, worth over $3 billion.
According to data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, last month the largest exchange outflows on record were recorded, with so-called shrimp and whale wallets being the main receivers of these outflows on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.
These outflows come as Bitcoin has posted its worst quarterly performance in more than a decade, as in the second quarter of this year it lost around 58% of its value, going from $45,524 to just under $19,000 at the end of the three-month period.
Bitcoin has posted its worst quarterly performance since 2011, when it lost 68.1% of its value in the third quarter of that year. At the time, the price of the cryptocurrency plunged after in June of 2011 its largest exchange, Mt. Gox, experienced its first hack. At the time, BTC even flash crashed down to $0.01.
Cryptocurrency prices plunging revealed several firms in the space were highly leveraged. In May, TerraUSD ($UST), an algorithmic stablecoin in the Terra network, collapsed along with its sister token LUNA, wiping billions from the market.
In June, embattled crypto lending firm Celsius Network froze withdrawals for customers over “extreme market conditions,” with rival lender Babel Finance and crypto exchange CoinFLEX freezing withdrawals shortly after. These were followed by Vauld and Voyager Digital.
Moreover, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has entered liquidation following a court order issued in the British Virgin Islands after creditors sued the fund for its inability to repay debts.
Exchanges freezing withdrawals likely reminded most cryptocurrency investors their assets are safer in wallets they control, leading to the cryptocurrency exchange outflows. Notably, since March 2020, the number of BTC held on exchanges dropped from 3.15 million to 2.4 million.
As CryptoGlobe reported, the number of active cryptocurrency users at Bank of America has fallen by more than 50% from its peak during the height of the cryptocurrency bull market as cryptocurrency prices plunge and Bitcoin posts its worst quarter in more than a decade.
To find the number of cryptocurrency investors using its platform, Bank of America looked at anonymized internal customer data that showed the number of clients that made investments in cryptoassets by sending or receiving payments to or from a cryptocurrency platform.
Glassnode’s data has notably found that the most recent reduction in the number of non-zero balance addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain saw 1% of users purging their holdings, compared to 2.8% between April and May 2021, and to 24% between January and March 2018.
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