Bitcoin (BTC) abandoned the United States during the 2022 bear market, new research suggests.
In a tweet on June 8, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode revealed some surprising conclusions about who is now using Bitcoin.
BTC supply moves to Asia
The past year has seen some seismic shifts in where Bitcoin is held and traded.
In its latest analysis of the BTC supply, Glassnode measured its migration around the world — notably, away from the U.S. and toward Asia.
Since mid-2022, the amount of the supply held and traded by U.S. entities has decreased by more than 10%.
At the same time, Europe’s share has stayed roughly equal, translating to a redistribution from west to east.
“A clear divergence is visible in the year-over-year BTC supply change based on geographical regions. The extreme dominance of US entities in 2020-21 has clearly reversed, with US supply dominance falling by 11% since mid-2022,” Glassnode researchers commented.
“European markets have been fairly neutral over the last year, whilst a significant increase in supply dominance is visible across Asian trading hours.”
The metric used to measure the phenomenon, Year-over-Year Supply Change, is a probabilistic tool that makes assumptions over BTC supply ownership based on the time at which it moves.
“Geolocation of Bitcoin supply is performed probabilistically at the entity level. The timestamps of all transactions created by an entity are correlated with the working hours of different geographical regions to determine the probabilities for each entity being located in the US, Europe, or Asia,” Glassnode explains in its guidance notes.
Year-over-Year Supply Change shows the U.S. share beginning to decline in March 2021, but accelerating beginning in May this year.
Coinbase CEO says U.S. must “seize” crypto opportunities
The findings come as the geopolitical landscape around crypto sees major upheaval of its own.
Related: SEC is killing innovation in the United States — 1inch co-founder
Hong Kong began allowing exchanges to offer trading this month, while in the West, U.S. legal proceedings against major exchanges marked something of a watershed moment for the industry.
The SEC suing an exchange is the new China bans #Bitcoin.
— Samson Mow (@Excellion) June 5, 2023
In an opinion piece for MarketWatch, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, one of the targets of the legal action, warned that poor regulation would disadvantage the U.S.
“Smart—and bespoke—regulation in the 1990s and early 2000s enabled the U.S. to define the Internet Age,” he wrote.
“Just like then, now is the time for Congress to seize the historic opportunity presented by crypto, and pass comprehensive legislation that safeguards consumers and fosters innovation.”
On the topic of Hong Kong, Armstrong added that China pushing the crypto narrative was “no surprise.”
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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.