The sovereign supply of bitcoin – total coins held outside of exchange reserves – hit an all-time high, blockchain data firm Glassnode reported; ether falls slightly.
Market moves: Bitcoin broke $52,000 briefly, while its supply outside of exchanges reached record highs.
Technician’s take (Editor’s note): Technician’s Take is taking a holiday hiatus. In its place, First Mover Asia is publishing a column by CoinDesk Chief Content Officer Michael Casey.
Prices
Bitcoin (BTC): $50,866 +.09%
Ether (ETH): $4,043 -0.8%
Markets
S&P 500: $4,791 +1.38%
DJIA: $36,302 +0.9%
Nasdaq: $15,871 +1.39%
Gold: $1,811 +0.2%
Market moves
Bitcoin, the oldest cryptocurrency, remained at the $51,000 level after it briefly broke above $52,000 during U.S. trading hours on Monday. At the time of publication, bitcoin was hovering just below $51,000. Ether was down slightly just above the $4,000 mark.
But trading activities were mostly muted, as the trading volume of the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization across major centralized exchanges was only slightly higher than it was on Sunday. Bitcoin’s low-volume rally came as stocks in the U.S. also rose in a week that’s traditionally marked by light but bullish trading.
Credit: CoinDesk/CryptoCompare
Meanwhile, as the market enters the end of the year, the so-called sovereign supply of bitcoin – total coins held outside of exchange reserves – reached an all-time high, according to blockchain data firm Glassnode.
The growth of bitcoin’s sovereign supply came as its long-term holders saw their ownership stake increase by 4.8% to reach 74.8% of all sovereign supply over the past year, Glassnode noted in its Dec. 27 newsletter. Short-term holders’ bitcoin ownership dropped from 28% this past January to 25.2% now.
“Such on-chain behaviour is more typically observed during bitcoin bear markets, which in hindsight are effectively lengthy periods of coin redistribution from weaker hands, to those with stronger, and longer-term conviction,” Glassnode wrote.
Source: CoinDesk