Bitcoin Withdrawals From Crypto Exchanges Surpassed $2 Billion In A Day As Bitcoin Surges Towards New ATH

Updated: 04 March 2024

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Bitcoin worth billions of dollars has left centralized exchange platforms as the market leader attempts to reach a new all-time high (ATH).

On Friday, just over $2.3 billion worth of Bitcoin left exchanges, said James Van Straten, lead analyst at CryptoSlate, in an X post.

“One of the biggest withdrawals in over 5 years,“ he said. “I don’t think I’ve quite seen anything like this before.”

The phenomenon comes amid unprecedented demand for Bitcoin from institutional investors following the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.

Bitcoin has soared 56% in the past month and surged 7.2% in the past 24 hours to trade at 67,251 as of 4.25 p.m. EST, about a couple thousand dollars shy of a new all-time high.

Coinbase Posts The Biggest Bitcoin Outflows

The leading crypto exchange in terms of daily trading volume, Binance, saw $400 million leave its wallets, and Van Straten said those are the most interesting because the exchange is not, like Coinbase, involved as a custodian for spot Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds).

It was Coinbase that recorded the biggest outflows, accounting for all of the rest, he said.

Boom, one of the biggest #Bitcoin withdrawals from @coinbase on record, $1B (16k BTC) during Asia trading hours. https://t.co/a4MfXAyKWM pic.twitter.com/YbOQgEaL4u

— James Van Straten (@jvs_btc) March 1, 2024

Coinbase also recorded one of its biggest BTC withdrawals ever, according to Van Straten. In another post on Mar. 1, the analyst said that someone initiated a withdrawal of 16k BTC, which was estimated to be worth $1 billion at the time of the withdrawal.

Glassnode data shows that the total BTC on major trading platforms dropped to 2,286,347 $142.5 billion on Mar. 2, the lowest level the collective reserves have reached since March 2018, when BTC traded at just $8,000.

An Uptick In New Investors

While BTC reserves on exchanges drop, new investors seem to be entering the mix as well. In a recent Quicktake market update report, an analyst from CryptoQuant highlighted continuous changes in unspent transaction output (UTXO) ages.

In the report, the analyst noted that “younger” ones are involved in transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. Meanwhile, UTXOs that have been dormant for at least six months, referred to as “older” ones, are starting to come alive again.