The portion of bitcoin supply held by retail investors hits an all-time high: Glassnode

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Around 17% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoins is now held by retail investors, according to recent public blockchain data curated by analytics firm Glassnode.

Not perfect yet, but solid for a 12-year-old asset and definitely in the right direction, Reflexivity Research analyst Will Clemente tweeted in response to the data. Bitcoin’s supply scatters over time, while fiat’s holder base swells over time.

A Glassnode chart shared by Clemente shows the percentage of Bitcoin supply held by retail investors rising steadily since 2011. Glassnode defines “retail” as holding less than 10 BTC in a wallet, with a current value of nearly $169,000.

Data from IntoTheBlock, another blockchain intelligence provider, seems to support this claim. The Bitcoin holdings distribution companies page shows that addresses holding 0-10 BTC account for 17.3% of the total Bitcoin supply.

This figure was below 12% at the start of 2020, but began to grow exponentially in 2022. Other periods of strong retail accumulation included late 2013 through early 2014, as well as the end of 2017, every late bull market/early bear market period for Bitcoin.

Glassnode has previously defined entities as separate owners of Bitcoin, including clusters of blockchain addresses that could plausibly belong to the same owner. In February 2021, he found that entities with less than 10 BTC accounted for 13.9% of supply, a figure that has increased over Bitcoin’s lifetime.

Bitcoin has often been criticized for its high concentration of ownership, which some say undermines proponents’ claims of decentralization. In November 2020, Bloomberg claimed that only 2% of accounts control 95% of all Bitcoin.

However, as Glassnode pointed out in a direct response, this number did not take into account the difference between individuals and wallet addresses, including exchange addresses, which may hold Bitcoin in the name of thousands or even of millions of distinct users.

Bitcoin also appears to have a more even supply distribution across different percentiles than other major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum and Dogecoin. According to CoinMarketCap, approximately 64% of DOGE and 38% of ETH are held by addresses representing at least 0.1% of total supply, compared to just 9% of all Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, additional data from IntoTheBlock shows that owners of more than 100 BTC represent a decreasing share of total ownership over time, 69.5% in 2013 compared to 59.8% today.

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