Long-term holders bought into Bitcoin (BTC) in a huge way last year, according to crypto analytics firm Glassnode.
In a new report, the firm notes long-term holders (LTHs) of BTC, entities that have kept their Bitcoin dormant for 155 days or longer, went through a “massive accumulation phase” in 2021, buying up more than 2.42 million BTC after March, currently worth about $112,573,560,000.
Long-term holders did sell off a modest amount of their Bitcoin supply following BTC’s all-time highs in October and November, but those sales have since plateaued, according to Glassnode.
“This signifies that LTHs have slowed their spending, and are more likely to be HODLers, or even buyers at these prices. This provides another constructive view of market conviction.
LTHs have spent around 150k BTC since October, which is just 1.11% of their total held balance.
The slow-down in spending is notable given the sharp and sustained correction during this time.”
Bitcoin is trading at $46,083.28 at time of writing, down more than 6.8% from where it was priced one month ago.
Another potentially bullish indicator for BTC is that the percent of its supply that was last active more than one year ago remains high, Glassnode reports.
“If we look at the supply last active 1y+ metric, we can see that a great proportion of coins accumulated in late 2020 remain unspent to this day.
Since October 2021, over 682k BTC have migrated into the 1yr+ age band, representing 3.3% of the circulating coin supply.
Over 57% of the coin supply is now older than 1yr, equivalent to the 51.5% seen at the time of the April 2019 bullish impulse.
Given how volatile 2021 was, seeing such an acceleration and large proportion of coins held throughout is quite remarkable.”
Glassnode notes that Bitcoin’s network activity, however, looks “lackluster.” The number of active on-chain BTC entities is still way down from the levels they were at during the 2017 and 2020/2021 bull runs, a potentially bearish indicator.
Transaction counts are also down from where they were during those previous bull runs, according to the analytics firm.
Read Glassnode’s full report here.
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