Bitcoin is leaving the United States during the 2022 bear market, new research shows.
In a tweet on June 8, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode revealed some surprising conclusions about who is now using Bitcoin.
BTC supply moves to Asia
The past year has seen some seismic shifts in where Bitcoin is stored and traded.
In its latest analysis of BTC supply, Glassnode measured its migration around the world specifically, away from the US and towards Asia.
Since mid-2022, the amount of supply held and traded by US entities has decreased by more than 10%
At the same time, Europe's share remained roughly the same, translating into a redistribution from west to east.
“Clear divergence is visible in year-over-year changes in BTC supply by geographic region. The extreme dominance of US entities in 2020-21 has clearly reversed, with US supply dominance down 11% since mid-2022,” commented Glassnode researchers.
“European markets have been fairly neutral over the past year, while a significant increase in supply dominance was seen across Asian trading hours.”
The metric used to measure the phenomenon, Year-on-Year Supply Change, is a probabilistic tool that makes assumptions on BTC supply holdings based on the timing of its movements.
“Bitcoin supply geolocation is done probabilistically at the entity level. The timestamps of all transactions made by an entity are correlated with the business hours of different geographic regions to determine the probability of each entity being in the US, Europe, or Asia,” Glassnode explained in its guidance note.
Year-over-Year Supply Changes show the US share started to decline in March 2021, but increased starting in May this year.
Coinbase CEO says US must “seize” crypto opportunity
The findings come as the geopolitical landscape around crypto is seeing major upheaval of its own.
Hong Kong began allowing exchanges to offer trading this month, while in the West, U.S. legal proceedings are underway. against major exchanges marks a watershed moment for the industry.
In an opinion piece for MarketWatch, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, one of the targets of the legal action, warned that poor regulation will hurt the U.S.
“Smart, bespoke regulations in the 1990s and early 2000s allowed the US to define the Internet Age,” he wrote.
“Just like then, now is the time for Congress to seize the historic opportunity presented by crypto, and pass comprehensive legislation that protects consumers and encourages innovation.”
On the topic of Hong Kong, Armstrong added that China driving the crypto narrative was “not surprising.”
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading step involves risk, and readers should do their own research when making decisions.
