Retail investors seem to be returning on the bitcoin landscape, at least according to relatively small addresses. Such holding at least 0.1 BTC have marked a new all-time high, while wholecoiners are at a 10-month peak.
Individual investors looking?
Data from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode shows the gradual growth of bitcoin wallets containing 0.1 BTC or more. As shown in the chart below, these entities soared during the 2017 bull run when retail mania was on the rise and fell in the following months as the asset began to cool. and down 80%.
Now, even though BTC trades significantly higher than in 2017, retail demand has been more gradual than spiking. As of March 4, there’re nearly 3,400,000 such accounts, which, as mentioned above, is a new all-time high.
Wholecoiners, i.e. addresses holding at least one BTC, also increased. In this case, however, the increase was more aggressive. These entities reached a 10-month high, according to Glassnode, with more than 820,000 addresses holding at least one bitcoin.
Separately, Google trends data shows that the number of “bitcoin” queries on the world’s largest search engine has increased slightly, which is another indicator suggesting a rise in retail interest.
Whales also buy
CryptoPotato reported earlier this week that the growing demand is not just coming from retail investors, but also from whales. Specifically, wallets holding 1,000 BTC or more ($41 million at today’s prices) had soared to their highest level in 10 months.
In addition, addresses with 100 coins shot up to a monthly high. In both these cases, though, what was more intriguing seemed to be the rapid increase, which came just days after Russia invaded Ukraine and the Western world started to impose financial sanctions against the former.
This has led many to speculate that the oligarchs and other Russians have turned to crypto, which has been supported by increased trading volumes from the world’s largest country in terms of continental mass.
