Bitcoin

Billion

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According to a recent&nbsp;<a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/04/24/bitcoin-wallets-waking-up-lost-coins-satoshi/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">report</a> by Fortune, which cites data from prominent blockchain sleuth Chainalysis, roughly 1.8 million ($121 billion) of Bitcoin is stored in wallets that have been inactive for more than a decade.&nbsp;
Dormant coins account for 8.5% of Bitcoin's 19.7 million circulating supply.&nbsp;
It is unclear what percentage of cryptocurrencies is lost forever, but the report suggests that the total number of such coins should stabilize around 1.5 million.&nbsp;
Earlier this month, for instance, a Satoshi-era whale woke up after an entire decade of inactivity with $115 million.&nbsp;
When wallets become active again after a long period of time, some assume that they might want to take profits after a price rally.&nbsp;
However, according to the report, there is no direct correlation between the activation of long-dormant wallets and substantial price moves.
Interestingly enough, Chainalysis has noted that old wallets tend to be activated at a rather predictable pace. The vast majority of such wallets do not usually make headlines due to their small size. Ninety-nine percent of all wallets that are considered to be lost contain less than 50 BTC ($3.2 million at current prices).&nbsp;
<h2 id="a-supply-crunch">A supply crunch?&nbsp;</h2>
According to data provided by&nbsp;<a href="https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&amp;category=&amp;ema=0&amp;m=supply.ActiveMore1YPercent&amp;mAvg=0&amp;mMedian=0&amp;mScl=lin&amp;pScl=lin&amp;s=1516399572&amp;u=1691366400&amp;zoom=" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Glassnode</a>, more than 68% of Bitcoin's total circulating supply has been inactive for more than a year.&nbsp;
The fact that less supply is available on the market is a potentially bullish development if one takes into account growing demand following the approval of a slew of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January.&nbsp;
The largest cryptocurrency is currently trading at $64,810 on major spot exchanges.&nbsp;

$121 Billion Worth of Bitcoin Might Be Gone Forever

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