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One Million Individual Wallets Now Hold a Whole Bitcoin
A major bump in such wallets came after the implosion of crypto exchange FTX between November and January.
Updated May 16, 2023, 7:45 p.m. Published May 16, 2023, 7:57 a.m.
Individual wallets holding at least one bitcoin (BTC) set a milestone figure earlier this week, suggesting long-term sentiment for the tokens remains intact even as broader markets weigh down bitcoin prices.
Data from the on-chain analytics tool Glassnode show bitcoin wallets holding more than one token crossed the millionth mark on Monday. This is a 20% bump since February last year.
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The data shows that bitcoin wallets holding one token grew by 79,000 between November and January – amid the collapse of crypto exchange FTX as prices fell from over $22,000 to briefly under $16,000.
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The recent rise in ‘Bitcoin Request for Comment’ (BRC-20) tokens has done little to increase the number of wealthy holders, with only 30,000 new wallets holding one bitcoin added since the BRC-20 token standard’s launch in March.
Read more: BRC-20 Explained: How Tokens on Bitcoin Work and Why They Are Controversial
These standards allow developers to issue tokens on the network and build decentralized finance (DeFi) services such as lending and borrowing. It has contributed toward fees on the Bitcoin blockchain surging to two-year highs amid the demand for block space, with altcoins issued on Bitcoin reaching a cumulative market capitalization of as high as $1.6 billion earlier this month.
Meanwhile, despite the large holder figure, some market observers saw that most of the current bitcoin transactions come from smaller wallets.
“During the last peak in 2019, most Bitcoin transactions skewed towards larger transactions, in the range of $1,000 to $10,000,” said Tom Rodgers, Head of Research at ETC Group, in an email to CoinDesk.“This suggests most Bitcoin users were using the blockchain for trading.”
“Compare this to last week. The largest cohort of Bitcoin transactions - 359,560 - came from transactions under $1. This suggests a huge increase in Bitcoin velocity -- or the amount of Bitcoin being transacted by users, instead of being locked up in cold wallets and held over the long term,” Rodgers added.
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Exchange Review - March 2025
CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.
What to know:
Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.
- Trading Volumes Decline for Third Consecutive Month: Combined spot and derivatives trading volume on centralized exchanges fell by 6.24% to $6.79tn in March 2025, reaching the lowest level since October. Both spot and derivatives markets recorded their third consecutive monthly decline, falling 14.1% and 2.56% to $1.98tn and $4.81tn respectively.
- Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions.
- Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.
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