It should be noted that this year has been really challenging for BTC and the cryptocurrency market in general. Here’s how Bitcoin’s exchange rate has changed by month in 2022 and for previous years.

Bitcoin exchange rate changes by month

Here you can see the result of June 2022, when BTC collapsed in value by 37 percent. This is the largest month-on-month collapse since 2013. Accordingly, the current bear market has also proved to be a serious test for investors.

The latter, meanwhile, are mostly in the red on their own Bitcoin positions, i.e. at a loss. As noted by Glassnode, the number of minus coins held by long-term BTC holders is now at an all-time high. We are talking about 6.05 million bitcoins, which are shown here in blue.

The number of coins in losses for short-term (red) and long-term (blue) holders of Bitcoin

Short-term ones are those addresses whose holders hold BTC for less than 155 days, while long-term ones hold the cryptocurrency for more than 155 days.

Short-term Bitcoin investors now have 1.88 million bitcoins in losses. It’s not a record figure, but it’s also quite serious.

Who buys bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies

According to Cointelegraph’s sources, accumulating cryptocurrencies are those addresses that have at least two incoming transactions and no withdrawals. This does not include the so-called dust, i.e. small spam transactions.

Miners’ and exchangers’ wallets are excluded from these statistics. Addresses that were last transacted more than seven years ago are also not counted, as coins on them may be permanently lost.

Growth in bitcoin accumulation volume

Today, the volume of coins in accumulation wallets reached 3,099,828 BTC. This is just below the all-time high of 3,403,280 BTC reached in August 2015. Notably, the number of the aforementioned wallets has grown by around 18 per cent over the year, which means that the trend towards hoarding first cryptocurrency and other coins as the market collapses is quite tangible.

Growth in the number of accumulating cryptocurrency wallets

Towards the end of December, another interesting trend emerged in the dynamics of bitcoin withdrawals from cryptocurrency exchanges. Almost six weeks ago – immediately after the news of FTX’s bankruptcy – users began actively withdrawing their coins from trading platforms, fearing a repeat of this scenario on other exchanges.

Volume of BTC withdrawals from exchanges

As you can see from the chart below, the volume of crypto withdrawals from exchanges peaked at 142,788 BTC per day on November 14. However, already on November 25, the same figure dropped to 9352 BTC, equivalent to a drop of more than 93.5 percent over the past weeks.

Moreover, the last time such a low daily outflow was observed was seven months ago in May. That said, it is important to note that immediately after the FTX collapse, exchange reserves shrank by more than $3 billion in a single week. By the end of December, Bitcoin’s balance on exchanges stood at 2.25 million BTC, down almost 21 percent from the 2022 peak of 2.84 million BTC in January.

BTC balance on exchanges

The drop in withdrawals is due to investors having already recovered from the initial shock of the FTX bankruptcy. Overall, this is a good sign – liquidity on other exchanges will remain, which gives hope for the recovery of the industry and the growing confidence in it.

Perhaps among the reasons for lower withdrawals from centralised cryptocurrency exchanges are two. First, many trading platforms have taken to publishing their own reserve data, confirming that they have user funds available for withdrawal. In doing so, some companies have taken a thorough approach to the idea, including publishing information about their own liabilities.

Second, a wave of attempts to discredit the cryptocurrency exchange Binance ended. As a reminder, shortly after FTX collapsed, some prominent members of the blockchain community, along with news outlets, started spreading rumours about alleged financial problems at the industry’s main exchange. In response, many users decided to withdraw the cryptocurrency, which created a good environment for testing Binance’s liquidity. As seen a few days later, the platform successfully passed the test.

Binance chief executive Changpen Zhao


The lingering negativity in the digital asset industry seems unlikely to affect the attitude towards cryptocurrencies on the part of their fans. They continue to hoard digital assets, including holding them at a disadvantage, waiting for the market to improve. Obviously, once people realise the key benefits of crypto, it is already difficult to refuse to interact with them. That means hoarding is likely to continue.