Number of Bitcoin Wallets With At Least 1 BTC Could Soon Hit a Million – How Could That Impact the BTC Price?

cryptonews.com:

Bitcoin bear markets are almost always viewed in a negative light. Net worth evaporates and more recent investors in the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization often find themselves deeply in the red on their initial investment.

But 2022’s bear market looks to have been a boom for one particular investor cohort. That is, the cohort of retail-sized crypto believers looking to get their hands on at least one BTC token.

According to data presented by crypto analytics firm Glassnode, there were slightly more than 800,000 Bitcoin wallets with a balance of at least 1 BTC when Bitcoin hit its record highs at $69,000 in November 2021.

Despite the aggressive price drop over the course of the last 15 or so months, that number has skyrocketed to over 980,000. A big part of that jump came after the untimely collapse of formerly one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX, which resulted in customers losing access to billions worth of crypto deposits.

The FTX collapse dealt a severe blow crypto investor confidence in depositing their assets in centralized entities, hence the rapid shift towards crypto self-custody. The number of BTC held by exchanges is currently around 2.275 million, down from 2.53 million prior to FTX’s withdrawal halt.

But the FTX collapse only served to accelerate a trend that was already underway. High-conviction retail investors have clearly used the 2022 bear market as an opportunity to own at least 1 BTC for the first time. In other words, this cohort of investors has clearly also been buying the dip. And if the current pace of growth in the number of wallets owning at least 1 BTC continues, it is likely to hit the 1 million mark within a few months.

2022 demonstrates that growth in the