Just after BTC hit all-time highs, 108,886 addresses had a balance of above $1 million. Now, it's just 80,409.
Bitcoin's dramatic crash over the past few months means tens of thousands of investors are no longer millionaires.
Back on Nov. 12 — not long after BTC hit a new all-time high of $68,789 — a grand total of 108,886 addresses had a balance that was greater than $1 million.
But fast forward to the present day, with prices currently around $36,500, and data from BitInfoCharts reveals that the number of millionaires has now dwindled to just 80,409.
Rough math tells us that this means about 26,477 people have lost this treasured status in under three months.
The dramatic declines have also affected whales — those who boast the very biggest BTC balances. While there were 10,587 addresses with a minimum cash value of $10 million last fall, just 6,960 hold the same status today.
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Diamond Hands vs. Paper Hands
Bitcoin's crash has been bruising to say the least — and earlier this week, its price was 50% below the all-time high set in November.
While a number of investors have "diamond hands," meaning that they're holding on to their BTC and riding through the volatility, many will have opted to sell their coins at a loss — fearful of further falls.
Indeed, the data from BitInfoCharts suggests that a substantial number of investors have decided to get out of Bitcoin altogether. While there were a total of 61.7 million BTC addresses back in November, just 57.6 million remain today — a fall of 4 million.
The confidence and swagger seen among Bitcoiners has diminished greatly since the start of the year — with hopes that BTC can race to $100,000 beginning to dwindle.
And the downturn has also been pretty calamitous for better-known analysts such as PlanB, who had openly stated that their worst-case scenario for Bitcoin was a price of $135,000 by December 2021.
Uncertainty over the Omicron variant, rising geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe, runaway inflation and the prospect of interest rate hikes have all put a dampener on Bitcoin's blistering performance.
BTC's close correlation with the stock market, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, has also brought into question the narratives that it's a hedge against inflation and a store of value like gold — an asset that people would flock to in times of uncertainty.
