Thousands of new bitcoin millionaires have been added in the past year after the digital asset’s multiple rallies. At its peak, it only took 14.5 bitcoins for a holder to be a BTC millionaire, far less than they had ever been in the past. Because of this, the number of bitcoin millionaires has grown rapidly and tens of thousands of new millionaires have been added to the count.
Now, however, with the recent price crash, many bitcoin millionaires have lost their millionaire status. Since the digital asset has lost almost 50% of its all-time high, the number of millionaires has drastically decreased in a short time.
There are 30,000 fewer Bitcoin millionaires
When bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000, the number of bitcoin millionaires grew rapidly. For the first time, there were over 108,000 BTC millionaires given the low number of coins required to achieve millionaire status. Everything was fine for a while and these 108,886 addresses retained their millionaire status. That is until the stock market crash that started in December 2021 and continued until January of the new year.
BTC trending at $37,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
In the next two months, the price of BTC would suffer a lot and by extension, these bitcoin millionaires would be hit hard. This was exactly the case, as around 30,000 BTC was no longer a millionaire within two months. At last count, the number of BTC addresses that held at least $1 million worth of bitcoins had collapsed to 80,409.
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Bitcoin whales with larger balances also suffered from the crash. Those whales that held more than $10 million at the time of the peak have been knocked down by 40%. The number had fallen from its peak of 10,587 to 6,960 to date.
Which holds ? Who is not ?
With any stock market crash, there will always be those who rush to cash out their holdings for fear of another downtrend. This has been the case with bitcoin. The liquidations also did not help matters as nearly $1 billion in liquidations were recorded following the stock market crash. Nevertheless, there are those who hold their bitcoins through thick and thin, bear market or bull market.
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BTC still has one of the highest holder rates in the crypto space. More than half (59%) of all BTC holders have held their coins for more than a year, a very impressive number considering that the digital asset has reached several all-time highs over the past year.
Sentiment among holders still remains largely biased to the upside and accumulation patterns, particularly among whales, have intensified of late. Of all the bitcoin in circulation, whales hold 10% of that supply. This number is always increasing as more big players enter the market and try to hold a bigger share than their competitors.
Featured image from Live Trading News, chart from TradingView.com