The number of bitcoins moved as the asset surpassed the $18,000 level is five times greater than in 2017, recent data shows.
Simultaneously, the long-term holder supply in profit has decreased in the past few months, suggesting that investors have cashed out some of their bitcoins.
Although bitcoin has surged in value in the past few months, reaching and even exceeding the 2017 highs, the community has found numerous differences between the two runs.
Most people believe that the 2017 rally was primarily fueled by speculation and FOMO. On the other hand, the asset has matured three years later, which has attracted institutions and prominent investors. Hence, the 2020 bull run seems significantly different.
The analytics company Glassnode recently breached another difference. This time, it comes from the UTXO realized price distribution (URPD). By measuring the URPD, Glassnode concluded that about 10% of the entire BTC supply had been moved at a price higher than $18.000. For comparison, the percentage was just two (or five times less) back in 2017.
URPD works alongside the unspent transaction output (UTXO), which refers to the number of bitcoins left after the execution of a transaction.
Working on top of it, the URPD shows at which prices the current set of Bitcoin UTXOs were created. Or, as Glassnode explains it – “URPD price buckets are calculated by adding the value of all UTXOs where the price when the UTXOs were created falls into that given bucket.”
It’s worth noting that the substantial difference between the percentages in 2017 and 2020 could also be attributed to the time that BTC has spent above $18,000.
Three years ago, bitcoin surged north of that level on December 15th and dropped below on December 18th. During the 2020 run, BTC broke above $18,000 on November 19th and has stayed above it for most of the time apart from a three-day dip below it.
Glassnode also recently stated that long-term investors (who held for at least 155 days) have started selling their bitcoins as the asset has almost doubled in value in two months.
By following the average spent output lifespan (ASOL), which shows the average age of coins being transacted, the company said:
“While the total amount in profit has increased due to the price hike, the number of coins in profit has not risen as significantly, indicating that most long-term holders bought their BTC below $10,000 and have been holding throughout most of the recent bull run.
However, the increase of ASOL in late November suggests that some long-term holders stopped holding and started realizing profits around this time.”
