The 19 millionth Bitcoin has been mined in recent days, meaning that there is less than 2 million Bitcoin left to be created and put in circulation. While the scarcity level increases, so does the interest from big money. In the meantime, Bitcoin’s price has reached the end of the consolidation zone.
What effect will this have on the cryptocurrency market, and what does it mean for the average crypto investor?
Everyone Is Accumulating — Whales and Shrimps Alike
The Bitcoin accumulation trend has heightened over the past weeks, driven by the increasing demand from large capital and smaller investors, says crypto analysis firm Glassnode.
Large-scale investors, such as Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Luna Foundation Guard, completed significant bitcoin purchases in the past week, with MicroStrategy even obtaining a $205 million loan specifically to enable them to add more bitcoin. As CEO Michael Saylor tweeted today, Microstrategy owns 129,218 bitcoins, acquired for a cumulative value of approximately $3.97 billion.
MacroStrategy has purchased an additional 4,167 bitcoins for ~$190.5 million at an average price of ~$45,714 per #bitcoin. As of 4/4/22 MicroStrategy #hodls ~129,218 bitcoins acquired for ~$3.97 billion at an average price of ~$30,700 per bitcoin. $MSTRhttps://t.co/Z45OuJU5KI— Michael Saylor (@saylor) April 5, 2022
At the same time, small-scale investors, or wallets holding less than 1 BTC, bought 0.579% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply (over 110K bitcoins) which represents 1.7x more coins than were mined over the same period, according to data from Glassnode.
Even outside of the crypto market, there is a similar trend. The holdings of the Canadian Bitcoin ETF have surged by 18.7% since the end of February, growing to an all-time high of 69,052 BTC. The inflows have even occurred in the face of the macroeconomic uncertainties arising from geopolitical factors, especially Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Bitcoin Flows out of Exchanges
In addition to the growing amounts of Bitcoin investments, BTC outflows from crypto exchanges have risen accordingly. In March alone, over 96.2K Bitcoins were transferred out of the cryptocurrency trading platforms, as Glassnode’s data revealed.
This is the biggest amount since March 2020, when BTC accumulation started to grow, prior to Bitcoin halving in May 2020. “Aggregate exchange outflows of this magnitude have only been seen on a handful of occasions through history,” say analytics.
BTC Price Stabilizes
Bitcoin has mostly been trading flat since April 1st, at which time it briefly dipped below the $44.5K level. The leading crypto has since regained up to 6.3% of its value and sits at around $46.9K at the time of writing.
This means that the leading crypto has been settled above its major resistance level of $44.5K for more than a week now, effectively converting it into a support. This has also led to slightly higher highs, but lower lows while consolidating — typically an indicator of a formative bullish pattern.
What to expect?
The consolidation phase is not infinite, and eventually Bitcoin’s price will have to decide which way to go. Day traders and technical analysis data suggest that this may happen in the next few days.
If Bitcoin successfully manages to retest the $44.5K support level, the price of the dominant crypto is projected to climb, at least to the next resistance level above $50.5K. However, should Bitcoin fail to hold the $44K support level, a further dip to $40K, or even lower, is on the cards.
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