Here’s what it means according to CryptoQuant

While the interest in Bitcoin among the big investors is increasing, the smaller market players are lagging behind.

According to a report by CryptoQuant, retail bitcoin investor holdings are growing at a historically slow pace, although this group of players is slowly returning to the market as BTC climbs to the $70,000 level.

Retail Investor Holdings is growing slowly.

In the past 30 days, retail Bitcoin holdings have increased by just over 1,000 BTC. The total assets of this market participants have increased by 18,000 BTC since July 3rd when the local bottom was recorded. At the time of writing, retail investors held 1.753 million BTC, slightly less than the record 1.765 million reached at the end of 2023.

As of May 2023, while retail holdings have grown by 27,000, the balance of these investors is shrinking. Before this decline in holdings, retail investors have seen periods of high growth: the market recovery in April 2020 after the Covid-19 disaster, the previous bull cycle in April 2021 and the 2022 bear market of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

Currently, large bitcoin investors outnumber retail players. The holdings of large entities are growing faster than retail investors, with the former adding 173,000 BTC to their holdings since the beginning of the year. On the other hand, the latter increased their holdings by only 30,000 BTC year-to-date.

“Retail investors saw their holdings increase significantly during the 2022 bear market with an annual growth rate of 347K Bitcoin,” reports CryptoQuant.

Low BTC transfer activity

The slow growth among retail investors can be seen in the overall movement of BTC to exchanges, which fell from 2,700 BTC in the first half of 2023 to 2,000 BTC in the second half and now 1,400 BTC in 2024. CryptoQuant says this indicates. Retail investors did not aggressively sell their assets, reflecting their weak BTC purchases.

Additionally, daily Bitcoin transactions by retail investors are at their lowest. The volume of these transfers was $326 million in mid-September, the lowest level seen since 2020.

Interestingly, analysts note that historical data shows low BTC trading activity among retail investors prior to price rallies. So the current situation for small bitcoin investors could be a positive sign.