On the 20th of December, Glassnode, a public blockchain data curated by an analytics firm, revealed that around 17% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin is now held by retail investors. In response to the data from Glassnode, in a tweet, Will Clemente, an analyst at Reflexivity Research, said that not perfect yet, but solid for a 12-year-old asset and trending in the right direction. The supply of Bitcoin disperses over time, while the holder base of fiat currency concentrates to whales over time, he added.
According to the Glassnode data chart shared by Will Clemente, the percentages of Bitcoin supply held by retail investors are on a steady climb dating back to 2011. According to Glassnode, the retail investors are those holding less than 10 BTC in a wallet, worth around $169,000 at this time.
The data from IntoTheBlock, a blockchain intelligence provider, also revealed the same information and appeared to back this up. According to IntoTheBlock’s page on Bitcoin holding distribution, the addresses possessing 0-10 BTC account for 17.3% of the total supply of Bitcoin. However, in early 2020, this figure stood at less than 12% and started growing exponentially in 2022. And other periods of heavy retail accumulation included late 2013 into early 2014 and late 2017.
In a previous report, Glassnode defined entities as distinct owners of Bitcoin, such as clusters of blockchain addresses that could presumably belong to the same owner. In February 2021, Glassnode data revealed that entities with less than 10 BTC accounted for around 13.9% of the supply. And since that time, this figure has been growing throughout Bitcoin’s lifetime.
However, Bitcoin has often been criticized for its significant ownership concentration, which some individuals from the crypto industry believe that it detracts from supporters’ claims of decentralization. Moreover, this latest figure did not account for the difference between individuals and wallet addresses.
