Glassnode data analyzed by CryptoSlate shows that 450,000 Bitcoins (BTC) held in exchanges or hot wallets prior to 2022 were moved to cold storage throughout the year.
Over the past 12 months, the market has seen multiple black swan events, with around 550,000 BTC abandoning exchange reserves. Many times, these reserves have shrunk significantly. For example, Binance lost 90,000 BTC in 7 days in December, FTX lost 70,000 BTC in 2 weeks in June, and finally, Coinbase lost 200,000 BTC in 4 days in November.
The orange line in the graph below represents the total amount of BTC held on cryptocurrency exchanges since the beginning of the year.
The exchange opened the year with just under $2.8 million in BTC and ended at around $2.25 million. This corresponds to a reduction of approximately 20%. Current BTC reserves held on exchanges represent less than 12% of total BTC supply.
self management
This year we have also witnessed over 1 million BTC entering self-management. The orange line in the chart below shows the illiquid BTC supply level, drawing an increasing line.
The illiquid BTC supply topped 14 million in January and 15 million in December. This also shows that 78% of the BTC supply in circulation is refrigerated.
Given that only 550,000 BTC left exchanges throughout 2022, we can say that the remaining 450,000 BTC were moved from exchanges or hot wallets to cold storage in 2021 and earlier.
