Over $1.5B in BTC withdrawn in one week
Bitcoin (BTC) has been pouring out of exchanges over the past week as users grow wary of security and regulatory scrutiny.
Data from chain monitoring resource Coinglass shows that US exchanges in particular are seeing sharp BTC balance reductions.
US exchanges lead BTC exodus
In the wake of the FTX scandal, efforts to draw attention to the risks associated with holding BTC storage increased on social media.
Users appeared to heed the warning, withdrawing over $3 billion in cryptocurrency in the week immediately following the solvency debacle and ordering a record number of hardware wallets.
The fallout from FTX has only just begun, meanwhile, and as regulators plan investigative actions and more attention to crypto as a whole, investor anxiety continues to grow.
The data shows that the trend is still in effect when it comes to exchange withdrawals. Over the past seven days, virtually every major platform has seen net withdrawals outpace deposits.
The biggest weekly decrease comes from Gemini, down almost 30,000 BTC, closely followed by Kraken, Binance and Coinbase.
Not surprisingly, US exchanges have seen particularly large withdrawals, and the jurisdiction will play a key role in the FTX saga going forward.
This week, lawmakers announced a dedicated hearing into what happened at the exchange, with its former chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, reportedly to be extradited to the United States from the Bahamas.
“FTX’s downfall has caused enormous damage to over one million users, many of whom were ordinary people who invested their hard-earned savings in the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to see it all disappear in seconds,” Maxine Waters, Head of US House Financial The Services Committee, which will host the hearing, was quoted by mainstream media as saying.
Meanwhile, the Coinglass figures show that even those exchanges without exposure to FTX have not been able to stop the exodus.
In total for the week, 134,000 BTC has left its books – equivalent to around $2.2 billion at current prices, with around $1.5 billion coming from US platforms.
“Acute financial distress”
As Cointelegraph reported, while exchange withdrawals have increased, the average BTC holder remains significantly underwater — and thus less than inclined to sell.
Related: Bitcoin Price Falls to $16.4K on Genesis Troubles as Leaders Defend GBTC
Data from research firms in the chain Glass node confirms this. The average long-term holder (LTH) – an entity that holds coins for at least 155 days – is down 33%.
This is almost unprecedented and is matched only by the bear market trough of 2018, when the average number reached 36%.
Accompanying comments described LTHs undergoing “acute financial distress.”
The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trade involves risk, you should do your own research when making a decision.
