- Bitcoin’s exchange-traded amounts are down to 11%, signaling a rush to safety
- Ether’s tokens changing hands are even less liquid, with 10.5% on exchanges
- Lowering supply on exchanges means that traders are looking for safety
BTC and ETH Less Discoverable on Exchanges
Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two leading tokens, are less discoverable on exchanges. According to the data analytics platform Glassnode, all the Bitcoin tokens available for purchase on exchanges dipped to 11.72% of Bitcoin’s entire supply.
In other words, of all 19 million coins mined out of 21 million, just about 2 million are currently sitting on exchanges and are up for sale at prices around $70,000 a piece.
In addition, Ether tokens are even less liquid, with just about 10.5% of Ether’s entire supply looking for buyers. At current market prices of around $3,700 per coin, and 120 million Ethers out there, roughly 12 million coins are up for grabs.
What Does It Mean?
The amount of coins being offered on exchanges indicates how traders feel about the market sentiment and its liquidity. If there is an increasing amount of coins sent to exchanges, traders are more active and looking to sell in order to move into more liquid assets such as the US dollar.
And vice versa, if the amount of exchange-traded coins is falling, this signals a retraction of the traders’ desire to do deals and sell their tokens, i.e., they take a passive approach to the market.
In the long run, there is a notable downside trajectory for the amount of coins available on exchanges. Just about nine months ago, in September, the amount of available tokens for Bitcoin and Ethereum was around 13% each.
From September through May, billions of dollars of crypto tokens have left exchanges globally and are sitting in off-exchange wallets for safekeeping.