Bitcoin supply shifts from US holders to Asian wallets: Glassnode
Istanbul, Turkey – April 28, 2022: Human hand puts bitcoin in wallet
Data from Glassnode reveals that Bitcoin supply has observed a shift from wallets based in America to those in Asia recently.
Bitcoin supplies held by Asian and US investors have moved in opposite directions recently
According to data from the analysis company at the chain Glass nodean interesting dichotomy has formed between the different regional supplies of the cryptocurrency recently.
Glassnode has divided the Bitcoin addresses into different regions based on the hours they have transacted. “Geolocation of Bitcoin supply is likely performed at the unit level,” notes Glassnode. An “unit” here refers to one or more wallets under the control of a single investor (or a group of investors).
“The timestamps of all transactions created by a device are correlated with the working hours of different geographic regions to determine the probability that each device is located in the US, Europe or Asia,” the research firm explains.
The three main regions are the United States (13:00 to 01:00 UTC), Europe (07:00 to 19:00 UTC) and Asia (00:00 to 12:00 UTC). However, in the context of the current discussion, only supplies based in the US and Asia are relevant.
Here is a chart showing the trend of the year-over-year supply change in these two regional Bitcoin supplies over the past few years:
Looks like the values of the two metrics have been going exactly the opposite directions in recent months | Source: Glassnode on Twitter
As shown in the graph above, the supply of Bitcoin held by US investors grew faster and faster in the run-up to and during the bull run in the first half of 2021, as the year-over-year change steadily increased.
The change slowed in the second half of the year, but still remained positive, indicating that supply continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. However, in 2022, the supply began to decrease, as the bear market took over and the LUNA and 3AC crashes took place.
The year-over-year change in the US-based BTC supply has continued to grow more negative since then and currently stands at -7.5%, suggesting that the supply has shrunk by 7.5 % since May 2022.
However, the Asian Bitcoin supply has shown a very contrasting behavior, as it started to increase just as the American investors started to lose their holdings.
Interestingly, the pace at which supply to the Asian traders has changed is almost exactly the same as the balance of the US-based wallets (although of course the change has been in the opposite direction).
Currently, the year-on-year change in Asian supply is +6.9%. The fact that the Asian investors have bought a similar amount to what the American owners have sold suggests a direct transfer of coins between the two supplies.
Now, as to why this continued transition of supply has taken place, the main reason is likely to be the fact that the United States has been tightening regulations related to the cryptocurrency sector recently.
One of the most prominent examples of this has been the regulatory breach observed by Coinbase from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $28,200, down 1% in the last week.
BTC has surged in the past day | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image from iStock.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com
