Despite the short-term bitcoin trading spike experienced in January, wallets that have been inactive for over three years are the biggest segment of the BTC holders. The long-term bitcoin hodlers seem not to be selling despite 2021’s all-time highs, while the nervous newbies have been taking profits along the way.
Based on Unchained Capital’s “Hodlwaves” chart that visually illustrates the time since bitcoin wallets were last active on-chain, this year has seen an increase in both the long and short-term activity.
The chart indicates the number of coins that have shifted in the last 30 to 90 days is at its biggest level since 2018. The addresses represent over 15% and are currently the biggest segment of Bitcoin wallets.
BTC wallets that have so far remained inactive for three to five years are currently the second-biggest segment which represents 13.5% of all the addresses. The wallets have also steadily expanded in number this year, with the onlookers speculating the data may reflect a huge number of bitcoin bag-holders who acquired coins in the 2017 season and held their funds in the whole of the bear market that followed.
While the share of wallets that have remained inactive in the last five to ten years seems to have been shrinking in the past year, the total number of addresses that have remained inactive for at least ten years has surged from about 1.7% two years ago to 10.7% currently.
Rafael Schultze-Kraft, the CTO and co-founder of on-chain crypto analytics firm Glassnode, shared some data on March 11, 2021, which revealed the total number of wallets that have not been active in the past three or more years has constantly increased since December 2021.
1+ year hodlers: selling
2+ year hodlers: selling
3+ year hodlers aka "been in a bull market before and know how this works": stacking sats#BitcoinChart: https://t.co/7VRnyrWbaD pic.twitter.com/MsnZptKxGF
— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) March 10, 2021
Nonetheless, the data indicate that the share of bitcoin wallets that have remained inactive for over 12 months has plunged from record highs of about 65% in January to 55% currently, with almost half of bitcoin wallets active in 2021.
