Bitcoin sees massive exodus from exchanges in a month..."scarcity is happening", will it drive price higher?
![Bitcoin sees massive exodus from exchanges in a month..."scarcity is happening", will it drive price higher?](/content/images/size/w1200/2024/04/4702e9d487d0bdf81f03bb2227b42949-1.jpg)
Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a massive exodus of bitcoin from exchanges in the past month, after a period of sideways trading following its decline, leading to a depletion of bitcoin on exchanges.
Ali Marteniz, a prominent crypto analyst, tweeted on his X account on Sunday that about 111,000 bitcoins have left exchanges to private wallets since March.
The culprits sweeping up bitcoin deposited on exchanges have been identified as U.S. bitcoin spot exchange traded funds (ETFs) and bitcoin "whales. On-chain analytics platform Into the Block reported that the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF has taken over about 4% of the total Bitcoin market supply since its launch in January.
In addition, the number of whale wallets holding more than 1,000 bitcoins has risen sharply this year, reaching its highest level since June 2022, according to Into the Block. The total amount of bitcoin whales have acquired so far this year has exceeded about 220,000 bitcoins, Into the Block said.
On-chain analytics platform LookOnChain has identified the wallets that have been the most aggressive buyers since March. LookOnChain said the wallet has been snapping up bitcoin sold on exchanges at a frightening rate since March, accumulating about 1,308 bitcoins from March to date.
"The frightening pace of exchange Bitcoin buying, coupled with the upcoming halving, is likely to lead to extreme Bitcoin scarcity in the market," crypto news outlet Yutoday wrote, adding, "Bitcoin scarcity will lead to a Bitcoin rally."