This Bitcoin Investors’ Cohort Makes Aggressive BTC Purchases

The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) has come under massive selling pressure ever since the FTX collapse triggered. As of now, Bitcoin is trading 2.30% down at a price of $16,198 with a market cap of $311 billion.

However, one investor group has been buying aggressively during this price correction. They are basically the Bitcoin Shrimps (holding <1 BTC) and the Bitcoin Crabs (holding <10 BTC).

On-chain data provider Glassnode explains that Bitcoin shrimps have witnessed an all-time high balance increase since the FTX collapse. Over the last fifteen days, the Bitcoin shrimps have added 96.2k $BTC to their total holdings. This cohort now holds a staggering 1.21 million Bitcoins which is equivalent to 6.3% of the total circulating supply. 

Similarly, the Bitcoin crabs cohort (with <10 BTC) has also seen aggressive balance increases in the last 30 days. During this period, this group of Bitcoin investors has added a staggering 191.6k $BTC to their holdings. This is also a convincing all-time high balance increase while overshadowing the July 2022 peak of 126k $BTC/month.

On the other hand, Bitcoin whales have been seen partly offloading their assets. BTC whales with more than 1,ooo BTC holdings have moved 6,500 Bitcoins to the exchanges over the last month as the FTX crisis unfolded. However, this distribution is still very small relative to the total Bitcoin whale holdings of 6.3 million BTC.

Bitcoin Holders Opt for Self-Custody

With the FTX crisis unfolding, a large number of Bitcoin investors have opted for self-custody as the trust in centralized players falls to a new low. The Bitcoin supply at exchanges has dropped to levels not seen in the last four years. On-chain data provider Santiment reported:

Just 6.95% of #Bitcoin is sitting on exchanges, according to @santimentfeed data. There had already been a gradual shift in $BTC moving into self custody going back to #BlackThursday (Mar 2020). But with the #FTX fallout, this trend has accelerated.

While Bitcoin is currently holding at the support of $16,000, some analysts warn of further downfall. Some market experts believe that the contagion through FTX collapse will spread further in the coming months. The domino effect by FTX could also push the BTC price to $5,000.