About 76 Percent of Circulating Bitcoins Now 'Illiquid': What It Means

The year of 2021 wrapped up as a fruitful one for the crypto sector with Bitcoin maintaining its position as the reigning king of the price charts. A recent report by analytics provider Glassnode has observed that 76 percent of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is currently illiquid, which means it is moved into wallets that have no history of spending. The anonymous Bitcoin creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto has capped the total number of Bitcoin tokens to be mined at 21 million. As per CoinMarketCap, 18.9 million Bitcoins have already been mined and are in the circulating supply.

“We can see that over the final months of 2021, even as prices corrected, there has been an acceleration of coins from liquid, into illiquid wallets,” Glassnode said in its report.

The remaining 24 percent of the Bitcoin supply presently makes for the liquidated circulation from wallets that are active in spending or trading their holdings.

As per CoinMarketCap, 40,049,185 crypto wallets have Bitcoin holdings. Out of these, 963,625 are active wallets.

The Glassnode report has indicated that Bitcoin investors are more interested in holding and accumulating tokens, rather than spending them. Bitcoin holders are clearly expecting big returns on their holdings in the days to come.

“There has been an acceleration of coins from liquid into illiquid wallets. Through December, coins moved to increasingly illiquid wallets at a rate of between 50,000 and 100,000 Bitcoins per month, reflecting a higher likelihood of broader accumulation,” the findings added.

In the last thirteen years since Bitcoin first came into existence in 2009, the crypto coin has emerged as the world’s most-valued cryptocurrency.

In 2009, each Bitcoin token was priced at $0.0008 (roughly Rs. 0.060), a long way down from its current prices.

It is also noteworthy that the pseudonym of the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, holds 1,125,150 Bitcoin tokens in a dormant wallet, amounting to around $66 billion (roughly Rs. 4,96,814 crore).

Even though 90 percent of Bitcoin’s pre-decided 21 million tokens have been mined, it will take 120 years for the remaining 10 percent Bitcoin tokens to come into the circulating supply, a report in December had said.

The process of “Bitcoin halving” had emerged as the reason for this prolonged period required to bring all Bitcoin tokens to the market.

The term refers to a pre-programmed event that occurs every 210,000 blocks, in the present situation that is roughly four years from today and which cuts Bitcoin’s inflation rate as well as the rate at which new tokens enter circulation by half.

The current market cap of Bitcoin stands at $2,231,353,914,105 (roughly Rs. 1,66,16,892 crore).

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.