Bitcoin Addresses with Non-Zero Balance Could Soon Hit Record High – What This Means for BTC Price

cryptonews.com:

According to Glassnode data, the number of Bitcoin wallet addresses holding a non-zero balance could soon hit an all-time high, with the latest price rally that has seen the value of the world’s largest cryptocurrency jump nearly 40% this year seemingly drawing in new investors.

According to the crypto analytics firm, there were 43,525,546 Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance on the second of February, nearly 300,000 up versus this time last month. The record high number of non-zero addresses of 43,759,663 was hit in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of what had formerly been one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX last November.  

At the time, this triggered a rush to withdraw crypto from exchanges, with many Bitcoin owners seemingly creating a self-custody wallet for the first time. However, capitulation as prices fell over the course of the following month resulted in non-zero address Bitcoin wallet numbers quickly declining back to their pre-FTX collapse levels.

But the recent recovery in non-zero address numbers suggests that, amid Bitcoin’s impressive rally since the start of the year, investors are once again returning to the Bitcoin market in greater numbers than they are leaving it. If the number of non-zero wallet addresses continues rising at the pace it has over the last few weeks, a new all-time high could be hit by the end of the month/by early March.

Despite the bear market of 2022, the number of non-zero Bitcoin addresses continued to steadily rise. However, in past bull market cycles, such as in the run-up to the 2017 peak and in late-2020/early-2021, the pace of new non-zero address creation has been much higher.

In the absence of sustained rapid growth in the number of non-zero