This growth is elucidated while looking at the number of investors who hold over 1 BTC – commonly referred to as “wholecoiners” – which has been skyrocketing over the past several weeks.
This bullish factor, coupled with heightened market participation rates amongst futures and options traders, seems to suggest that the market is growing and maturing despite the intense ongoing selloff that is plaguing BTC and most other major altcoins.
Investors are Accumulating Bitcoin Despite Intense Downtrend
The past several weeks have been rough for Bitcoin and the aggregated cryptocurrency market, with BTC and most other major altcoins plummeting from their 2020 highs in late-February in a trend that has been perpetuated by the weakness in the global markets.
Although the selloff has shifted investor’s sentiment to be highly bearish, it appears that retail investors still have some underlying confidence in Bitcoin’s mid-to-long term outlook, as data shows that the number of wallet addresses holding over 1 BTC has just hit a fresh all-time high.
Glassnode, a prominent cryptocurrency research and analytics firm, spoke about this in a recent tweet, noting that there are now 795,630 wallets containing over 1 Bitcoin.
“BTC Number of Addresses holding 1+ coins just reached an ATH of 795,630.000. Previous ATH of 795,300.000 was observed on 10 March 2020,” they noted while pointing to a chart showing the steady growth of new “wholecoiners.”
#Bitcoin $BTC Number of Addresses holding 1+ coins just reached an ATH of 795,630.000
Previous ATH of 795,300.000 was observed on 10 March 2020
View metric:https://t.co/s7tx1xxyz3 pic.twitter.com/bjcdmFv7kq
— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) March 11, 2020
This data metric is important because it offers insight into how investors view Bitcoin as an investment, with the steady growth of this number elucidating that it is garnering increasing popularity.
Crypto Market Shows Signs of Vitality as Futures and Options Volume Explodes
As reported by NewsBTC yesterday, Bitcoin’s CME Futures and options trading volume has seen a drastic rise throughout the past several days, showing that investors and traders are both highly involved in the markets despite the ongoing selloff.
Skew – another blockchain analytics firm – spoke about the rise in BTC options trading volume in a recent tweet, noting that it just set fresh all-time highs of $200m yesterday.
“All time high for bitcoin options volumes yesterday with nearly $200mln trading,” analytics platform Skew noted in a recent tweet.
All time high for bitcoin options volumes yesterday with nearly $200mln trading pic.twitter.com/dwS2hlqbnl
— skew (@skewdotcom) March 10, 2020
CME Futures volume rose in tandem with Bitcoin’s options volume, surging to $400m. This shows that despite the overt weakness of the market, investors and traders are both still heavily engaged with and interested in Bitcoin.
Featured image from Shutterstock.