Bitcoin miners are holding more bitcoins than at any point in the past two years as the cryptocurrency continues to trade above $11,000, signalling increased bullishness about future gains.
According to wallet addresses tracked by Glassnode, miners are holding a total of more than 1.82 million bitcoins, setting a two-year high and continuing a noticeable upward trend that began in September 2019. In just the last year, aggregate holdings by miners have increased by roughly 2%, excluding growth from other bitcoin miners not tracked by Glassnode.
There are three possible causes for the increase in total bitcoins held by miners:
First, potential optimism that bitcoin’s recent rally will likely continue.
Second, the rotation in hardware as miners order, receive and deploy new machines, according to Harry Sudock, vice president of strategy at GRIID, a data center and mining infrastructure company.
Last, the total number of coins held by miners has increased as new mining pools accumulate uncharacteristically large amounts of bitcoin.