On-chain data shows that the supply of Bitcoin shrimp has reached an all-time high as these small investors continue to pile in aggressively.
Bitcoin Supply of Shrimp has reached a new all-time high
According to data from the on-chain analytics company glassThe supply held by Shrimp has increased by 24,600 BTC in the last month alone. “Prawn” here refers to bitcoin holders who currently hold a wallet balance of less than 1 BTC.
Since these investors hold such low amounts, they are likely to be retail investors. This means that the “shrimp supply” (which is, of course, the total amount of bitcoin held by the combined addresses of these owners at the moment) can provide insight into the behavior of retail investors.
When shrimp supply trends are up, it means that shrimp are currently piling up, while a downward trend in the indicator indicates that those holders may be distributing their holdings at the moment.
Now, here’s a chart showing the trend in the shrimp supply of Bitcoins over the past few years:
The value of the metric has continued to go up in recent weeks | Source: Glassnode on Twitter
As shown in the chart above, the supply of Bitcoin shrimp was observing a gradual increase until around mid-2022, but since then, the rise seems to have accelerated.
This suggests that while retail investors have always been growing their bid non-stop, the buildup has become particularly aggressive in the past year or so.
The chart also contains data for another on-chain indicator, called “Net Shift of Shrimp Supply Position”. As the metric’s name already suggests, it tracks the net change in supply from these small investors. More specifically, the change in the past 30 days (ie the monthly change) is measured by the indicator here.
When the value of this indicator is less than zero, it means that the shrimp sold a net amount of their coins over the past month. On the other hand, positive values indicate net growth in supply.
From the graph, it is clear that this indicator has not really gone into negative territory in the past few years at all, which indicates that this group has experienced only positive growth in this period.
There are two events in particular where the change in Bitcoin net supply of shrimp appears to have seen particularly large spikes; 3AC’s bankruptcy in June 2022 and the collapse of FTX in November 2022.
Both events involved a drop in centralized platforms, which led to a market FUD about holding coins in custody of such platforms. Therefore, the exponential growth in the supply of shrimp during these events may be due in part to some of the larger holders pulling out of these platforms and keeping their coins in a bunch of smaller wallets.
Recently, it appears that the monthly change in the index has been high again, although not at the level of these highs. About 24,600 BTC entered the shrimp wallets, taking their combined supply to a new all-time high.
In the entire history of the cryptocurrency, there have only been 224 days (4.3% of the trading life) that have recorded monthly changes higher than that. The recent violent buildup from retail investors could be a positive sign for the cryptocurrency, as it is a sign that adoption of the currency is increasing.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at around $27,900, up 4% in the past week.
BTC has registered an uplift today | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image by Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com