Glassnode: Bitcoin Long-Term Holders Have Shifted To Distribution Recently

Keshav Verma

Last Updated: June 11, 2024 11:27 am

3 mins read

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Data released by Glassnode suggests Bitcoin long-term holder behavior has shifted from accumulation to distribution recently.

Bitcoin Long-Term Holders Have Shed 222k Coins Off Their Stack Since May

As per a new report from Glassnode, the BTC long-term holders have been spending up to 47k BTC per month in recent days.

The “long-term holders” (or LTH in short) refer to the cohort of Bitcoin investors that have been holding onto their coins since at least 155 days ago, without selling or moving them.

The “LTH net position change” is an indicator that measures the net number of coins that these HODLers have been selling or buying recently.

When the value of this metric is positive, it means LTHs are accumulating right now. On the other hand, the indicator being less than zero implies this group is distributing at the moment.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin LTH net position change over the past year:

Looks like the metric's value has been red in recent days | Source: Glassnode's Market Pulse, 2022-08-05

As you can see in the above graph, the Bitcoin long-term holders started showing deep distribution behavior following the month of May.

However, around three weeks ago, the LTH net position change flipped as these holders began to accumulate. At the peak of this green phase, these investors were hodling at a rate of 79k BTC per month.

But this buying spree didn’t last too long. Soon after, the LTHs again shifted back to a trend of distribution, where they sold at a rate of up to 47k BTC per month. In the past week, the selling has reduced a lot, but the metric’s values still remain red.

Because of all the selling since May, the long-term holder supply has lost around 222k BTC (as of three days ago, when the report released).

The below chart shows how the Bitcoin supply held by LTHs has changed during the last couple of years:

The value of the metric seems to have slid down in recent months | Source: Glassnode's Market Pulse, 2022-08-05

At their all-time high in May, the LTHs held 13.559 million BTC. Since then, their supply has come down by 1.6%.

It remains to be seen what consequences the new shift towards distribution may have for the crypto. The current bullish momentum may not last too long if the selling trend from LTHs continues.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $24k, up 4% in the last week.

The value of BTC has jumped over the last day | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com

Keshav Verma

Keshav is currently a senior writer at NewsBTC and has been attached to the website since June 14, 2021.

Keshav has been writing for many years, first as a hobbyist and later as a freelancer. He has experience working in a variety of niches, even fiction at one point, but the cryptocurrency industry has been the longest he has been attached to.

In terms of official educational qualifications, Keshav holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from one of the premier institutes of India, the University of Delhi (DU). He started the degree with an aim of eventually making a career in Physics, but the onset of COVID led to a shift in plans. The virus meant that the college classes had to be delivered in the online-mode and with it came free time for him to explore other passions.

Initially only seeking to make some beer money, Keshav unexpectedly landed clients offering real projects, after which there was no looking back. Writing was something he had always enjoyed and to be able to do it for a living was like a dream come true.

Keshav completed his Physics degree in 2022 and has been focusing on his writing career since, but that doesn’t mean his passion for Physics has ended. He eventually plans to re-enter university to obtain a masters degree in the same field, but perhaps only to satiate his own interest rather than for using it as a means to find employment..

Keshav has found blockchain and its concepts fascinating ever since he started going down the rabbit-hole back in 2020. On-chain analysis in particular has been something he likes to research more about, which is why his NewsBTC pieces tend to involve it in some form.

Being of the science background, Keshav likes if concepts are clear and consistent, so he generally explains the indicators he talks about in a bit of detail so that the readers can perhaps come out having understood and learnt something new.

As for hobbies, Keshav is super into football, anime, and videogames. He enjoys football not only as a watcher, but also as a player. For games, Keshav generally tends towards enjoying singleplayer adventures, with EA FC (formerly FIFA) being the only online game he is active in. Though, perhaps due to being ultra-focused on the game, he is today a semi-pro on the EA FC scene, regularly participating in tournaments and sometimes even taking back prize money.

Because of his enthusiasm for anime and games, he also self-learned Japanese along the way to consume some of the untranslated gems out there. The skill didn’t merely remain as just a hobby, either, as he put it to productive use during his exploration for small-time gigs at the start of COVID, fulfilling a couple of Japanese-to-English translation jobs.

Keshav is also big into fitness, with agility and acceleration-related workouts making a big part of his program due to the relevance they have in football. On top of that, he also has a more traditional strength based program for the gym, which he does to maintain an overall fitness level of his body.

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