Bitcoin has been doing good lately in the market. The digital asset broke the $50K price point earlier this week, before seeing a slight retracement down to $49K. This has been driven by a number of factors in the market. Growing interest is at the top of the list. As the price rallies, a number of interesting things have been happening in the Bitcoin space, ranging from holding patterns to the duration of the hold. Recent data shows that the number of short-term bitcoin holders has declined to new lows. Most investors are now just holding their coins and not moving them out of their wallets. This is happening regardless of where the price of BTC is at any moment. A record of approximately 84% of the total bitcoin supply has not been moved in three months. This timeline coincides with the end of the last bull rally that saw the asset hit a new all-time to the present rally.

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Investors Moving Bitcoin Out Of Exchanges

A bull rally that would usually lead to an accelerated rate of sell-off is now having the opposite effect. Instead of investors clamoring to sell off their coins and take profits as the price goes up, data shows that investors are hoarding their coins. This is apparent in the inflows and outflows from cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Mounting buy pressures is now the order of the day as long-term holders have refused to move any of their bitcoin holdings. With over 80% of total supply barely moved, demand has now exceeded supply in the market, which has led to growing BTC prices. The accumulation patterns show that long-term holders are just taking shares from short-term holders to add to their stash.

Short-term BTC holders are down | Source: 

This is leading to scarcity in the digital asset that will see buy pressures continue to go up while sell pressures drop. Outflows from crypto exchanges show that investors are accumulating and consolidating their BTC holdings for the long term.

Tides Are Changing, And So Are Hands

The past couple of years has seen bitcoin investors change their investment strategy in the market. Before, the predominant investing pattern was to buy the asset, hold for a period of time, then sell off during a bull rally. This has been the case for previous rallies. These patterns always plunged the market into a long bear stretch following a bull market.

BTC price corrects down below $50K | Source: 

But as the market has evolved, investors are evolving with it. The potential of BTC no longer is a short-term profit grab. Instead, coins are being held for the long term. Bitcoin’s growth over the years has shown that the asset is still only in its early stage of growth. So the next couple of years will most likely see the digital asset post bigger gains. The number of weak hands in crypto is decreasing by the day. More investors are turning towards holding for the long term. Bitcoin now has more diamond hands in the market than there are weak hands.

Featured image from USA Today, chart from TradingView.com