Morgan Stanley reports a record number of unused BTC in the last six months

What’s new? Analysts at Morgan Stanley, a financial conglomerate, Sheena Shah and Kinji Steinmetz noted extremely low trading activity in the bitcoin market. 78% of the first cryptocurrency’s total supply has not been involved in transactions in the past six months, and the share continues to rise. Previously, a similar figure was observed during the downturn in the crypto market in 2018. At that time, the number of unused bitcoins was 75%, the Financial Times, citing a report by Morgan Stanley.

Material by Financial Times

What else does the report say? Experts explained that those who bought BTC more than 6 months ago are holding onto their positions, probably waiting for prices to recover. For the remaining 22% of bitcoins owned by investors who have traded the asset over the past six months, the average breakeven price is just over $22 300, analysts calculated.

The lack of movement coincided with a downturn in activity on most exchanges, except for market leader Binance. The platform eliminated fees on trading in 13 pairs with bitcoin back in July, and it now concentrates about a fifth of all trading volume.

According to the document, Ethereum now correlates more strongly with stocks than bitcoin. According to experts, due to the relative stability of BTC, some investors may wonder if Ethereum’s transition to Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) has changed the dynamics of trading for bitcoin. That is because the Bitcoin blockchain does not restrict the access of certain market participants the way Ethereum does, analysts explained.

As of October 28, 12:35 UTC, BTC and ETH are trading at $20 158 and $1500, respectively.

Analysts note that bitcoin tends to find strong support at just above $18 100. They suggest that traders are buying dips.

Public miners are not mining as much BTC. They are having a rough year amid rising energy prices. The share prices of some of the biggest of them, such as Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain, have been at a low point. Core Scientific said in October that its financial resources could be depleted by the end of the year. The company’s representatives said that if alternative capital-raising options fail, the company may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection.

As trading volumes fall and there are fewer market participants, intraday traders are increasingly influencing prices. Their activity is more influenced by technical price and momentum than by long-term asset managers.

For what will happen to the bitcoin price, read GetBlock Magazine’s article.