Parts of this article from Milk Road my favorite
free Cryptocurrency Newsletter
– How many unique addresses now hold 1+ BTC
We’ve all heard of Bitcoin whales, the market-moving holders with at least 5,000 BTC. But did you know there’s a whole hierarchy of crypto fish?
Octopuses, shrimp, crabs. Enough to rival a Long John Silver’s.
So what kind of Bitcoin Holder are you?
Today, we’re talking about the crabs. Those are the addresses that hold between 1 and 10 BTC ($28,500 to $285,000.) And there are now 1M crabs walkin’ around – a new milestone for Bitcoin.
So what’s behind the growth? Partly that whales are distributing Bitcoin at a faster rate at the moment.
This is good in the long run. That means more Bitcoin will be distributed across a wider group of investors. More BTC holders = more mass adoption
Even shrimps (the bottom of the bitcoin-holding food chain) are in accumulation mode. Glassnode
said shrimps now hold 6.6% of circulating supply; crabs hold 10.5%.
The number of years left until Bitcoin’s next halving
We like halving an avocado as much as the next person. But halving Bitcoin’s issuance? That really gets us going.
A Bitcoin halving does a few things:
Keeps Bitcoin’s inflation rate steady. The halving slows how often new Bitcoins are minted, making it more scarce and valuable
Reduces mining rewards by 50%. They’ll go from 6.25 BTC a block to 3.125 BTC. Miners really get the short end of the stick with halvings…
Will likely raise Bitcoin’s price. With the new scarcity, demand may go up as investors anticipate a slowed growth in supply.
That’s what’s happened in the years following past halvings. But there was also a lot going on at the same time.
Like when Bitcoin’s price was ~$11 in November 2012, when a halving occurred. A year later, it was ~$1,100. This was also when early adopters jumped onboard.
And in December 2017, a year after the 2016 halving when Bitcoin’s price was $650, it rose to ~$20K. That was one of Bitcoin’s infamous bull runs, and initial coin offerings were popping up everywhere.
And then came 2020’s halving, when Bitcoin was at ~$9K. A year later, it hit its ATH of ~$69K. *Sigh* …the good ole days…
That was the pandemic crypto boom. Everyone and their mother (Joe Shmoe, big companies, investment funds, etc.) were getting in on the market.
So who knows what exactly will happen after the next halving in April 2024. But we’ll be there talking you through it when that time comes.
FIRST BITCOIN REDDIT POST
The year was 2009. Party in the U.S.A. was playing everywhere. Kanye West had just stolen Taylor Swift’s mic at the VMA’s…
And the first thread about Bitcoin was posted on Reddit.
The post came 4 months after Satoshi released Bitcoin to the world. The price of 1 BTC = $0.01.
So, what did people have to say about the OG crypto at the time? Mostly cold reviews.
THE COLDEST
“Wow. That’s amazing. I don’t think anyone’s done a completely digital pyramid scheme before.”“This is the sort of thing that seems cool in theory, but in practice only gets used by people buying illicit materials off the internet.”“Lol, what an astonishingly terrible system.”
A few with vision, saw the potential
“This is a pretty awesome idea. Though I’m sure the government will love anonymous, non-taxable transactions over the internet.” (This person was not wrong…)“Holy cow! Seems awesomely creative. But I sure do wonder about security and whether the idea will catch on.”
Fast forward 14 years, and Bitcoin is the largest digital asset by market cap and priced at $~28K.