Only 19% of mined BTC moves between exchanges for trading – Chainalysis

• A new report by Chainalysis has revealed that only around 19% (3.5 million) of all mined BTC is used for trading. 
• As per the report, about 60% of the Bitcoin is held by retail and institutional investors. 
• 20% of the Bitcoin hasn’t moved from its present wallet addresses for at least five years.

Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm, has recently released a report stating that only around 19% of the total mined Bitcoin (3.5 million BTC) frequently moves between crypto exchanges for trading. Up until now, 18.6 million Bitcoins have been mined, which can be categorized into three main buckets. 

As per the report, about 60% of the Bitcoin is held by crypto entities. These include retail and institutional investors. These holders have never sold more than a quarter of the Bitcoin they’ve accumulated, indicating the long-term investment outlook that they hold. 

Another 20% of the Bitcoin hasn’t moved from its present wallet addresses for at least five years. The report refers to these Bitcoins as “lost Bitcoin.” The remaining 3.5 million Bitcoin is the amount of crypto that moves between exchanges. Chainalysis refers to this part of Bitcoins as BTC used for trading. 

The report noted that around 340,000 investors are primarily responsible for continually moving the 3.5 million BTC between exchanges. Further breaking down these active investors into retail and institutional investors, Chainalysis revealed that retail investors form the majority. 

According to the report, retail traders are traders who deposit less than $10,000 worth Bitcoin on exchanges at a time. Chainalysis found that around 96% of all transfers made to exchanges on an average weekly basis can be attributed to retail investors. Nevertheless, the liquidity of the crypto market is mainly maintained by institutional investors responsible for around 85% of all the USD value of BTC sent to exchanges. 

The report further noted that four exchanges stocked in nearly 40% of all Bitcoins received by exchanges this year. These exchanges include Binance, Huobi, Coinbase and Bitfinex. The next ten exchanges following the took in around 36% of the bitcoins, while the remaining hundreds of exchanges shared the rest of the 24% of BTC among themselves.