Crypto Exodus: Bitcoin and Ethereum Supplies on Exchanges Plummet to Historic Lows
Exchange reserves for BTC and ETH just cratered to levels not seen since the last bull market—so much for ’paper hands.’
Why it matters: When coins flee exchanges, it signals long-term holders are bunkering down. Either that, or everyone’s waiting for Wall Street to blink first on ETF approvals.
The irony? Traders scream ’decentralization!’ while obsessively tracking centralized exchange metrics. Classic crypto cognitive dissonance.
BTC and ETH Exchange Supply Dries Up
According to Santiment, BTC’s supply on exchanges has fallen to 7.1% for the first time since November 2018. Over the last five years, there has been 1.7 million less BTC on crypto trading platforms.
Similarly, ETH now has less than 4.9% of its supply on crypto exchanges for the first time in more than 10 years. It also has 15.3 million fewer coins on trading platforms over the last five years.
A shrinking supply of a certain cryptocurrency on exchanges often means a decline in assets available for immediate sale. This also means that investors are more confident and are moving their assets to cold storage for long-term holding, with the expectation of future price appreciation.
With shrinking supply comes reduced selling pressure, especially over the short term. This leads to high price swings, especially if demand rises.
Is Demand Rising?
One way to determine if the BTC and ETH markets are experiencing higher demand is to examine flows into their investment products.
The United States spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) market has recorded eight days of positive flows out of the last ten trading days. The daily inflows have been running into hundreds of millions of dollars. Spot ethereum ETFs have also seen notable inflows over the same time frame, although not as much as BTC.
Additionally, data from CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report indicates that digital asset investment products attracted positive flows for the fifth consecutive week, with Ethereum and Bitcoin funds recording substantial inflows.
While demand for BTC and ETH continues, their prices are up slightly in the past 24 hours. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that BTC trading is at $105,290, and ETH is hovering around $2,527 at the time of writing.
