On May 9th, Santiment, a cryptocurrency market data provider, announced on Twitter that the amount of Bitcoin on exchanges has reached its lowest ratio since December 2017. It indicates that traders are becoming more interested in self-custody and less willing to risk selling back to exchange wallets.
According to Santiment’s data, Bitcoin’s supply on exchanges has dropped from 6.78% to 5.84%, which is a five-and-a-half-year low. The reduction in Bitcoin supply on exchanges implies that more traders are holding onto their BTC, which can positively affect the cryptocurrency’s value.
Furthermore, in another tweet, Santiment reported that one of Bitcoin’s largest whale addresses, a Binance cold wallet, has been extremely active. Through four transactions, this wallet has moved $2.26 billion worth of BTC out of its possession.
These recent developments indicate a positive trend towards self-custody and a potential long-term bullish outlook for Bitcoin. However, these two updates from Santiment provide valuable insights into the current state of the Bitcoin market.
The decreasing amount of Bitcoin on exchanges indicates a shift in trader behavior towards self-custody, while the massive movement of BTC by a large whale could have implications for the market in the near future.
Bitcoin Experiences High Demand For Blockspace
On the other hand, according to a tweet from Glassnode, a leading provider of blockchain data and intelligence, Bitcoin sees a surge in demand for blockspace due to the increased use of BRC-20 tokens, text-based inscriptions, and ordinals.
It has resulted in a significant revenue boost for miners, with the average fee paid per block reaching 2.905 BTC, a level not seen since the past bull peaks.
Some recent blocks have recorded an astonishing total fee of 5.87 BTC, almost 94% of the 6.25 BTC block subsidy. It clearly indicates the high demand for blockspace and the willingness of users to pay high fees to get their transactions processed quickly.
However, the mempool, the storage area for unconfirmed transactions waiting to be processed, is currently full. Transactions approaching the 50sat/vbyte fee rate band are being purged to manage this situation. It means that users may experience delays in their transactions getting confirmed.
The surge in demand for blockspace and the resulting increase in fees is a positive development for miners. It remains to be seen how this trend will continue, but for now, it is clear that Bitcoin’s blockspace is in high demand.
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