Bitcoin has undoubtedly had a stellar 2019 so far. Year to date, the cryptocurrency has gained some 200%, rallying from around $3,500 to $10,000.
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While this market’s whales have undoubtedly benefited from this performance, data suggests that a good majority of BTC users are actually profitable.
Thousands of Bitcoin Users Are Profitable
According to Into The Block, a machine learning-enhanced blockchain analytics firm, 79% of all Bitcoin addresses with a positive balance are in profit.
For any address with a positive balance, @intotheblock identifies avg price at which tokens were acquired, indicating if the address is at profit or loss.
Addresses at profit:$BTC 79%$LINK 56%
Addresses at loss:$ETH 74%$ADA 75%$ICX 94%$FET 93%$ZEC 95%
h/t @mbeaudroit pic.twitter.com/4kOlhFui4i
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) August 24, 2019
Their data, which was cited by pro-crypto economist Alex Krüger, suggested that some 21.36 million BTC addresses are “in the money”. Into The Block’s data suggests that most of the addresses in the money, accumulated Bitcoin at $850 to $3,900.
The reason why so many Bitcoin holders are in profit is due to the fact that the cryptocurrency has only traded in a five-digit region for a small percentage of its lifetime.
In fact, for around 99% of the cryptocurrency’s life, it has traded under $10,000, where BTC is trading at today.
Why BTC Owners Are HODLing On
While it would make sense for this vast majority of Bitcoin investors to liquidate their positions to lock in gains, CoinMetrics data is suggesting that there are now more HODLers of the cryptocurrency than ever before.
On all time frames that CoinMetrics analyzed — 180 days (half year), one year, two years, and five years — the untouched supply of Bitcoin has been on the rise, growing since the bull run of 2017 and early-2018.
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In fact, the number of BTC that hasn’t been touched for at least one year has grown to ten million — an all-time high. This means that over half of the Bitcoin currently mined and just under half of all of BTC’s fully-diluted supply have not been transferred in over 12 months.
The copious number of long-term-minded cryptocurrency investors is likely a byproduct of the growing number of theses and models that predict Bitcoin still has massive upside potential.
Altcoin Bagholders Suffering
While most Bitcoiners are in the money, Into The Block’s data shows that altcoin holders haven’t been doing too well. In fact, 74% of Ethereum addresses are at a loss, with many holding ETH bags from $260 to $315.
Cardano, ICX, Fetch, and ZCash are among the altcoins that have also seen a majority of their owners suffer massive losses. In fact, the firm’s data suggests that 95% of ZCash addresses — there may be some shielded transactions — are out of the money.
This implies that many altcoin holders held their cryptocurrencies from 2017’s mania until now, without selling.
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