On-Chain Data Shows That Bitcoin HODLers Have Diamond Hands

Almost everyone who acquires and holds bitcoin for over three months is in it for the long run.

A March 15th report published by blockchain data firm Glassnode states that “more than 95% of spent outputs are younger than 3 months old.” Only 5% of bitcoin that are moved have been held in their previous on-chain address for over 90 days.

Age of Spent Bitcoin Outputs. Source: Glassnode

Glassnode categorized the owners of bitcoin older than 155 days as long-term holders (LTH), and those who own coins younger than that as short-term holders (STH). After studying those two categories of bitcoin users, the researchers noticed that “once a coin passes our 155 day threshold to become a LTH held coin, it is increasingly unlikely to be spent on a statistical basis, often only coming back to life during volatility and at higher prices in bullish markets.”

Glassnode also shared some assumptions about long-term versus short-term bitcoin holders. Long-term holders are expected to be more knowledgeable and confident about Bitcoin, so they accumulate coins in bear markets and only sell during bull markets. Short-term holders are presumably newer to Bitcoin, often move value between exchanges, and are more sensitive to price volatility. The company points out that there is no distinct separation between those two types of investors:

As bull markets carry on, LTHs will transfer some portion of their BTC wealth to STH whilst some STH will 'stack sats' and hodl their coins to eventually mature into LTHs.

This type of hoarding shouldn't be surprising given the ongoing institutional accumulation of bitcoin. The head of digital assets at major international investment bank Goldman Sachs said that Bitcoin is seeing "huge" institutional demand, with 40% of the nearly 300 bank's institutional customers already having exposure to digital assets.

Investment bank Citi also recently suggested that Bitcoin is at the doors of mainstream adoption. This month's reports indicate that North America's first Bitcoin ETF accumulated nearly 11,300 Bitcoin during the three weeks following its launch. Last month Microstrategy's corporate treasury reached a total of 90,000 bitcoin.