Bitcoin (BTC) remains the most popular in the world and it gets a lot of attention as the primary mover of the industry. Many people track the price of the digital currency using tools like CoinMarketCap and a number of unique metrics that contribute to the growth and performance of bitcoin that are rarely mentioned. This article looks at three of these on-chain metrics.
Addresses by time held
An important feature of bitcoin is that its supply is capped at 21 million. With a circulating supply of 19,571,581 BTC, it is a luxury to get hold of the coin, even though exchanges have an excess of what is currently in demand.
Because of this, a class of address holders called “holders” are helping to solidify the coin’s growth.
Holders, or addresses that have held their BTC for more than a year, account for 69.23% of all addresses holding the coin. This surpasses the combination of “cruisers,” or accounts that sell regularly, at 23.99%, and “traders,” or those that have held for at least three months, at 6.78% of all addresses.
Network Difficulty
The difficulty of the bitcoin network, as measured by the hashrate, is also an important metric that dictates the rate of BTC production. According to Blockchain, the current hashrate is 493,313,217.742 TH/s, up from 368,924,260.618 TH/s as of September 1.
The higher the hash rate, the harder it is to produce BTC, and the more secure the network. With the , more miners are preparing for this event by adding more miners to the network, a move that can significantly increase the hashrate and indirectly contribute to the scarcity of the asset.
Exchange Netflows
In the crypto world, exchanges are the primary channel through which many people adopt and abandon digital currencies like bitcoin. Exchange netflow shows the difference between coins entering and leaving exchanges. A positive netflow indicates that more funds are entering exchanges than leaving, and vice versa.
According to data from IntoTheBlock, the current exchange netflow is pegged at negative $62.57 million. This means that more money is leaving exchanges for self-storage, which reduces the underlying selling pressure and improves pricing sentiment.
