The Hidden Factor Behind Bitcoin’s Transaction Volume Decline

Recent buyers are more likely to hold their bitcoins on exchanges.

Volume naturally drops when a market declines from a parabolic phase as Bitcoin has.

Magnifying this natural tendency is that new participants remaining in the market that started investing near the top of the bubble. Are probably dollar cost averaging into positions with small periodic outlays. For example you can get started on Coinbase for as little as $10 every couple of weeks.

Even if they were inclined to. Given where transactions fees are at the amount they have invested makes moving value onchain from an exchange to a wallet impractical.

Meanwhile the price of Bitcoin finally rose to the point that long term Hodlers were willing to sell. In many cases they probably mined Bitcoin directly to wallets so offloading their holdings required onchain transactions increasing volume during the bubble phase.

With the price decline this source of demand for transactions has for the most part evaporated.

So

In aggregate current buyers are more likely to hold their coins on exchange. While long term hodlers are unlikely to sell at current prices. Leading to a reduced volume of transactions above and beyond what would naturally occur as a result of the price decline.

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