Although it has been developed for more than a decade, Bitcoin still seems to be a sensitive topic in some places. But even so, Bitcoin has achieved great results in the past decade, and its asset price performance has exceeded that of various assets such as gold, oil and stocks. As shown in the figure below.
From the perspective of total market value, Bitcoin has already ranked among the top 10 asset types in the world, as shown in the figure below.
Many people may be curious, who holds the most Bitcoin now?
1. Overall distribution of Bitcoin
Due to the anonymity of blockchain, there is no specific answer to this question, but we can still get a basic understanding through the data on the chain to see the general situation of Bitcoin currently held by individuals, institutions, and governments.
- Wallet addresses with more than 100,000 Bitcoins
As of now, there are only 4 Bitcoin wallets with balances between 100,000 and 1 million BTC, accounting for about 3.6% of the total circulation. Among them, two wallets belong to Binance, one wallet belongs to Bitfinex, and one wallet belongs to Robinhood. As shown in the figure below.
But this does not mean that those bitcoins completely belong to the corresponding exchanges, because a large part of the bitcoins held by the exchanges are actually bitcoins stored in the exchanges by users (including individual users and institutional users), and the specific distribution of holders is probably only known by the exchanges themselves.
- Wallet addresses with more than 10,000 Bitcoins
In addition to the top 4 addresses above, the next 98 wallet addresses in the list hold more than 10,000 bitcoins, and the bitcoins held by these wallets together account for about 12% of the total circulation. As shown in the figure below.
Among these large wallets, except for the addresses that have been marked, other unmarked addresses are anonymous wallet addresses (which may belong to individuals or institutions).
The total supply of Bitcoin is 21 million. As of the time of writing this article, 19.74 million have been mined. The overall distribution is shown in the figure below:
But one thing that may need to be added here is that although the theoretical circulation of Bitcoin is 19.74 million, the actual circulation is actually less than this number, because according to statistics, almost 4 million Bitcoins are permanently lost. In addition, because individuals/institutions/governments can also have multiple wallet addresses at the same time (storing Bitcoin in multiple addresses), we basically have no way of knowing who holds the most Bitcoins now? We can only understand the general situation through wallet addresses (with publicly available addresses or on-chain tags). Of course, don't forget that Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet address still has more than 1 million Bitcoins (which can be classified as lost because the wallet address is unlikely to be reactivated).
2. Bitcoin held by entities or institutions
Currently, there are more than 90 entities holding BTC or using BTC as an investment or asset, and the cumulative BTC held has reached 2,609,234 pieces. As shown in the figure below.
Since many companies’ financial statements need to be made public, if you are interested, you can also further observe the holding costs (i.e. the basic purchase cost of BTC), increase and decrease of positions of different institutions to understand the possible market trends, as shown in the figure below.
Now that we have talked about the overall distribution of Bitcoin, let’s talk about a question that everyone may be more concerned about: Will the price of Bitcoin reach a new high this year?
Two days ago (August 15th, Beijing time), the United States released two relatively important economic data, namely retail data and unemployment rate data.
In terms of retail data: U.S. retail data in July exceeded expectations across the board, with a month-on-month increase of 1% (far exceeding the expected 0.4%). Judging from the data, the growth in retail data seems to indicate that the U.S. consumer market is still relatively active, and the purchasing willingness of the American people is picking up, indicating that there seems to be no sign of recession as expected, so this has also dampened expectations of a rate cut to a certain extent.
In terms of unemployment data: the number of first-time unemployment claims in the United States fell for the second consecutive week, and the number of first-time unemployment claims in the week ending August 10 fell to 227,000 (lower than the expected 235,000), and the number of continuing claims also fell to 1.86 million. Although there is obvious seasonality in the number of weekly unemployment claims, compared with previous years, this year's unemployment data does not seem to have deteriorated significantly.
In general, the latest data seems to have greatly cooled down the original recession expectations to a certain extent, because from the data, the US economy is still strong (no matter whether it is true or false, it is the case from the published data), and with the release of these data, it is directly reflected in the US stock market as a positive factor, so after the data was released, the US dollar index returned to above 103, and the S&P 500 index also rose a lot. As shown in the figure below.
Behind these data, the Federal Reserve also has the opportunity to cut interest rates moderately (whether it is a step created by itself or not is not important), because since each economy is still strong, the so-called recession crisis that was originally expected will naturally be resolved, and the Federal Reserve has no reason to rush to cut interest rates by 50 basis points in September.
It is precisely in this macroeconomic context that the crypto market seems to have become more "fragile" in recent days. On the one hand, people hope that the interest rate cut will bring some new liquidity to the market. On the other hand, they are afraid that the interest rate cut will be too drastic, leading to a bigger black swan after the collapse of the US stock market.
Therefore, it is indeed a difficult time for the crypto market now, and the market seems to be in a relatively critical adjustment period. In the short term, if BTC can remain around $58,000, it is possible to continue to rise to the $62,000-65,000 range. If it falls below $58,000, it is possible to enter a deep correction range below $55,000.
As for where the market will go, we cannot accurately predict it at present, but we might as well start with some basic events/situations and then sort them out as follows:
1. Government holdings and sales
Currently, governments around the world hold a lot of Bitcoin, some of which are publicly visible, while others are more secretive. For example, some countries like El Salvador have publicly recognized Bitcoin as legal tender and are even actively hoarding Bitcoin, but countries like North Korea are said to have been regularly using hacking and other questionable means to secretly obtain cryptocurrencies.
According to some public data, the United States currently holds at least 210,000 bitcoins, a major Asian country holds at least 190,000 bitcoins, the British government holds at least 60,000 bitcoins, and some members of the Ukrainian government also privately hold about 46,000 bitcoins. As shown in the figure below.
As for the sell-off, although after the German government's sell-off some time ago, the news about this seems to no longer have such a big impact on some people. However, this sell-off may still have a certain negative impact or pressure on the market. For example, the British government holds more than 60,000 bitcoins, and the new Treasury Secretary Rachel Reeves may sell them like Germany.
2. ETH’s capital inflow and outflow
- Bitcoin ETF
In terms of ETF holdings, the top few are DCG (Grayscale's parent company), SIG (a US multinational private financial technology company that bought Bitcoin ETFs worth up to $1.31 billion in the first quarter of this year), Millennium Management (an asset management company headquartered in New York), Jane Street, etc. As shown in the figure below.
The 13F document shown in the above figure refers to the declaration form for institutional investment. It is a quarterly report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that investment institutions or consultants with assets under management exceeding $100 million must submit within 45 days after the end of each quarter. Therefore, by observing the changes in the 13F positions of these institutions, investors can get a glimpse of professional investment managers' views on market trends. Since the disclosure of this report has a certain lag, and does not include the short positions of institutions, it is impossible to fully and timely display a company's investment portfolio strategy. We only make appropriate references.
Alternatively, we can also refer to the inflow and outflow data of BTC ETF at the same time, as shown in the figure below.
- Ethereum ETF
The focus of attention at present may be the outflow of Grayscale's Ethereum Mini Trust ETF ETHE. As of the time of writing this article, ETHE's historical net outflow is US$2.386 billion, and ETHE holds a total of about US$9 billion in ETHE on its books, which means that the fund has reduced its total holdings by more than 25% since the ETF went online (July 23). As shown in the figure below.
Therefore, some analysts believe that as the outflow of ETHE progresses, this will become one of the main bullish catalysts for ETH prices in the coming months. Because they believe that the price of ETH may be similar to the original trend of BTC. After the BTC ETF was officially launched at the beginning of this year, GBTC was also affected by a large amount of capital outflow, but then the price of BTC ushered in an increase and created a record high.
3. Trump and the US presidential election in November
Trump now seems to have been called the Crypto President by some people. Many analysts believe that if Trump can win the presidential election this year, the market will enter a carnival again and prompt Bitcoin to break through $150,000.
But judging from the current forecast data, it seems that the chances of the crypto president winning have dropped. As shown in the figure below. This also means that if Trump loses, the new president may bring new uncertainties to the cryptocurrency market.
4. BTC.D data indicators
The BTC.D indicator currently looks interesting, continuing to fall after retesting the 57% level, which seems to be a key position. If we refer to the data of past cycles, we can also find that this position seems to be a theoretically optimal position range at the beginning of the alt season. As shown in the figure below.
Although many analysts believe that we will not see the copycat season again, the data indicators do not seem to show that the situation is that bad. However, the indicators are only a feedback of historical data and cannot accurately predict the market.
As for whether the price of Bitcoin will continue to hit new highs this year, everyone has their own opinions on this matter. In fact, other people’s opinions are not of much practical help to your current operations. Your pressure may not be whether BTC can break new highs or reach $100,000 this year, but that there may be problems with your risk assessment and position management. Therefore, we suggest that you do more reflection and review from these two aspects.
As for the market trend, whether we can see a bull market before the end of this year (or the first quarter of next year), let's first look at the market performance in September and October. The main issue affecting the market is liquidity, and liquidity mainly depends on the macroeconomic situation.
In short, the market is still in a critical adjustment period. There are some favorable catalysts as well as some unfavorable factors. The risks during this period are often the greatest, and the market needs greater liquidity stimulation + new narrative stories to promote a big bull market.
Therefore, if you cannot make a decision yourself, then the best thing to do during this period is to do nothing. If you want to do something, our advice remains the same: if you think the bull market is still there, then continue to buy BTC or ETH in batches (note that it is in batches) at a position you can accept, and then wait patiently, and be mentally prepared for the long term.
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Disclaimer: The above content is only a personal point of view and analysis, and is only used for learning records and communication, and does not constitute any investment advice. The encryption field is an extremely high-risk market, and many projects have the risk of returning to zero at any time. Please treat it rationally, do not touch it if you do not understand it, and be responsible for yourself.
