According to research by CryptoQuant that uses on-chain statistics, Bitcoin blockchain network activity has reached a level not seen since China stopped crypto miners in May 2021.
Ordinals is a technology that enables the storage of NFT on the Bitcoin blockchain, and its success has contributed to the recent surge in activity. BitMEX data shows that the number of NFT trades on Bitcoin has skyrocketed since December, with the minting of almost 13,000 Ordinals. Despite the fact that many on-chain measures are becoming positive and some are even flashing bull signs not seen in years, many experts are still exercising prudent skepticism.
Bitcoin’s Performance Is Still Not Enough
One of them is Yonsei dent, who argued in a Quicktake blog article published on CryptoQuant this week that the year 2023 does not fit with the pattern of prior bull markets.
He argues that the issue resides in the fact that the number of active addresses has not grown despite the fact that the BTC/USD exchange rate has increased by about 50% this year. Unlike Ethereum NFTs, which are stored on external platforms like IPFS or Filecoin, Ordinals store the NFTs directly on-chain.
Since then, Bitcoin has seen some of its highest block sizes ever, with numerous blocks exceeding the 4 MB limit. With the end of the weak market in 2018 and the COVID-19 cross-market collapse in March 2020, the 30-day moving average (MA) of active addresses increased, as seen in the accompanying figure. A similar tendency, however, has not yet materialized in 2023. Coins delivered to exchanges by LTHs are now predominantly in profit, which is a hopeful indicator that sentiment is rising.
Around the middle of January, 58% of LTH coins transferred to exchanges were moved at a loss, but at the beginning of this week, that number dropped to 21%, according to data from Glassnode.
