Five centralized exchanges are currently holding more than 1.96 million BTC or 10.6% of Bitcoin’s entire supply, according to data published by Chain.info. While cryptocurrency exchanges are usually revoked on fake trading volumes, the recent data reveals only a better picture.
Coinbase Tops At Custodying Large BTC Holdings
Such a large sum of BTC holdings are held by top crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Huobi, Binance, OKEx, and Kraken.
Coinbase is the largest BTC holder among exchanges. Perhaps, the exchange’s substantial increase in BTC holdings might be due to its institutional traders who are more inclined towards making long-term investments, without reacting to short-term price fluctuations. The San Francisco-based crypto exchange has 944,904 BTC holders spread across 4.39 million different wallet addresses.
Coinbase is followed by Huobi at 323,665 BTC held by 901,600 wallets with Binance, of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges at 289,961 BTC across 2.7 million addresses.
Meanwhile, digital exchange OKEx crypto is currently ranked fourth and holds over 276,184 BTC in 339,000 wallets, with Kraken at 126,510 Bitcoin in 672,000 addresses.
The other seven crypto exchanges – Bitflyer, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Poloniex, Coincheck, Gate.io, and Bitstamp are currently holding between them an approx of 210,000 Bitcoins on behalf of their customers.
Allure Towards Centralized Exchanges
Meanwhile, Chainalysis’s recent estimate highlights that the 3.7 million BTC that are not moved in more than five years are likely lost, signifying 15% of Bitcoin’s entire supply currently custodied across the five centralized exchanges.
Despite the crypto community’s long chants on not your keys, not your Bitcoin, the findings reveal that crypto enthusiasts are quite comfortable in holding Bitcoins on centralized exchanges, despite the security risks associated with it. Maybe, crypto traders are attracted more towards centralized due to its greater liquidity, also the ability to trade Bitcoins for fiat.
Centralized exchanges, being the prime points of cryptocurrency trading, and a popular place to store Bitcoin will definitely climb up to more than 10% in the coming times.
