The end to ‘BTC tourism’ thanks to cryptocurrency decline

The current bear market for cryptocurrencies is not for “tourists”. Proof of this is that these occasional investors, who were attracted to cryptocurrencies during the last bull run, abandoned the market.

This is what a report from the blockchain data analysis company Glassnode revealed. Company’s survey reveals that the so-called “crypto winter” has pushed “tourists” away from the market. Additionally, the report found that only long-term holders, the holders, are active.

End of ‘BTC tourism’

According to the report, blockchain data from the BTC show that the balances of whales (large investors) and “sardines” (small investors), who accumulate BTC, increased considerably during this period.

“We can see aggressive accumulation taking place by both the largest (10,000+ BTC) and smallest (less than 1 BTC) BTC participants. Both sardines and whales have scored near-perfect (blue) scores on the accumulation trend metric since mid-May. This indicates that your balance has increased significantly and consistently,” the company said.

BTC Accumulation Chart by Color – Source: Glassnode

So, digging deeper into this data, Glassnode found that sardines are increasing their balance at a rate of 60,460 BTC per month, the most aggressive in history.

In percentage terms, these more than 60,000 BTC are equivalent to 0.32% of the entire circulating supply per month of BTC.

“Interestingly, the rate of expansion of the sardine balance surpasses the previous record set at the ATH of December 2017, when prices were also at $20,000,” the report added.

Based on this, Glassnode concluded that smaller investors see $20,000 as an attractive price.

Drop in the number of addresses and new users

Regarding the departure of “tourists”, the report identified other relevant trends, such as the decline in activity on the network due to lower demand and falling investor interest.

Since November 2021, there has been a steady decline in the number of active entities and addresses. According to Glassnode, activity on BTC addresses has dropped from over 1 million per day to 870,000 per day. That is, a drop of 13%, suggesting little growth in new users.

Number of active BTC addresses – Source: Glassnode

Meanwhile, active entities are now only 244,000 per day. According to Glassnode, the number is in a predominant downtrend.

Finally, the report also found that the growth rate of the BTC user base has dropped to around 7,000 new entities per day, similar to the lows of 2018 and 2019.

New entities – Source: Glassnode