The number of Bitcoin addresses holding balances greater than 0.1 BTC has declined over a two-year period for the first time since the cryptocurrency network’s launch in 2009, according to blockchain data reported by Protos.com.
The metric dropped from 4,548,107 addresses on December 8, 2023, to 4,443,541 as of this month, representing a 2.3% decline. Prior to this period, the number of addresses holding more than 0.1 BTC increased annually through 2023, according to the report.
The data shows the number of unique addresses rose steadily with occasional brief fluctuations lasting a few months, peaking in December 2023. The figure plateaued through most of 2024 before declining to the current two-year low, according to the analysis.
By comparison, addresses holding 0.01 BTC or more declined by only 0.7% during the same period, indicating a sharper decrease among wallets with larger balances.
Reasons for the Decline
The decline comes as the Bitcoin ecosystem has evolved significantly from its early years. Thousands of centralized exchanges, exchange-traded funds, derivatives platforms, treasury companies, and other financial products now provide exposure to Bitcoin’s price, according to industry observers. This infrastructure makes it difficult to determine the actual number of individual investors holding specific amounts of Bitcoin, as assets held by these intermediaries are commingled on-chain.
Hardware wallets such as Ledger, Trezor, and Coldcard remain available for direct Bitcoin custody. However, many investors now use ETFs and other exchange-traded products that comply with retirement account regulations, which direct Bitcoin holdings do not satisfy, according to financial analysts.
Security practices among Bitcoin holders have also evolved. Users increasingly employ techniques including unspent transaction output consolidation, extended public keys to distribute holdings across multiple wallets controlled by one private key, embedded wallet structures, and cryptographic methods such as XOR to combine seed phrases from multiple wallets, according to cryptocurrency security experts.
These practices reduce the necessity of holding large balances in single addresses, regardless of total investment size, according to the report. The data nonetheless provides insight into behavioral patterns among Bitcoin network users over time.