Cheatsheet: 45% of bitcoin hasn’t moved in more than 3 years

Billions of dollars in bitcoin are flying across the blockchain as price stops just short of record highs

article-image

Metech Multimedia/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

This is Cheatsheet, a primer on what’s happening in crypto today.

Traders are still pumping dog coins — but luckily for our collective sanity, something else has pumped even harder.

Bitcoin Cash fork eCash (formerly Bitcoin Cash ABC) is up 68% over the past day, its market cap jumping to two-year highs above $1.6 billion. The project is still being developed somewhat, but there doesn’t seem to be a direct catalyst for its recent pump.

Other top performers include Shiba Inu (SHIB), gaining nearly 65%, and blockchain-powered video streaming network Theta (THETA), which has jumped 31%. 

Zombie coin Terra Luna Classic follows with 24.5%. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) are up 4% and 8%, respectively.

On-chain mail

Bitcoin’s run has coins on the move and it’s changing the holder landscape.

  • Diamond hands: 11% of all bitcoin haven’t moved for between five and seven years, the most since early 2017 when the asset was worth $1,000.
  • Itchy palms: 17% have moved in the past three months, down from 19.4% at the start of the year (indicating rising numbers of bitcoin held)
  • Class of ‘21: 45% haven’t moved in more than three years, down from 49.75% in October (the number of medium-term holders has shrunk slightly over bitcoin’s current run).

Crypto exchanges have now seen their third straight day of net BTC inflows for the first time in one month, totalling nearly $525 million, indicating at least some intent to either take profits or enter altcoin markets.

Still, three of the six biggest days of net outflows since the FTX debacle in November 2022 have occurred over the past three months, with overall balances reducing by around 50,000 BTC ($3.33 billion) year-to-date.

However, outflows haven’t kept up with bitcoin’s price: There’s more than $135.3 billion in bitcoin sitting on exchanges right now, the highest US dollar value since crypto’s previous all-time high.

  • Tether has officially entered the $100-billion club, the fifth crypto to ever do so (and the first stablecoin).
  • Restaking app EigenLayer has flipped lending protocol Aave for TVL, now $11.05 billion and the second biggest DeFi app behind liquid staking tool Lido.
  • BSC lender Kinza and Base DEX Aerodrome are the fastest growing apps for TVL over the past week (Aerodrome TVL at highs of $205 million, raw ETH deposits still a ways off).
Warmer colored bands are slowly taking over the supply — which means more coins dormant for longer (Source).

Crypto business

Bitcoin fatigue seemed to hit on Monday, even as BTC inched ever closer to new record highs.

  • Slim pickings: Only two crypto stocks are set to open Tuesday higher: Cipher Mining (7%) and Coinbase (1.7%).
  • Volatile: Miners Argo and Marathon dropped the worst outside of regular US hours, down 8.9% and 4%.
  • Mending pending: Core Scientific is slowly clawing back its market cap after escaping bankruptcy — up 34% this month to $740 million but still three-quarters down on early 2022 highs.

Coinbase stock meanwhile is worth more than at any point since crypto’s previous peak in 2021, hitting $55.5 billion, about 30% shy of its highest ever valuation (nearly $77 billion).

COIN’s correlation with the wider tech market — as benchmarked by the Nasdaq 100 — is still holding, currently at 66% after spending much of the past few weeks inverted, per TradingView.

It’s trading almost in tandem with MicroStrategy these days, currently at 93% correlation. MSTR itself doubles as a proxy for bitcoin.

  • BITI, the ETF offering short exposure to bitcoin, is now down 72% over the past year.
  • Grayscale’s ether trust still trades at nearly 9% discount to NAV after another SEC delay to its pending ETF decision.
  • Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is still the richest crypto billionaire on Forbes real-time list, worth $15 billion to Brian Armstrong’s $10 billion.

On the ground

Loading Tweet..
No peak until Coinbase hits #1 on Apple App Store charts
Loading Tweet..
Animal Farm, but make it Web3
Loading Tweet..
USA likes the coin

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Fully homomorphic encryption is emerging as the leading cryptographic approach to onchain confidentiality, enabling computation directly on encrypted data without exposure. We are constructive on FHE as a category and Zama as the clear leader, though the 1,000x+ computational overhead and hardware dependency represent material execution risks that make throughput scaling the key variable for valuation.

article-image

BTC finished the week up 1.6%, while L2s, RWAs and the treasury trade continued to grind lower

article-image

DTCC moves DTC-custodied Treasuries onchain via Canton, while Lighter’s LIT launches trading at a fees multiple in Hyperliquid territory

article-image

In the 90s, rapt audiences worldwide watched a coffee pot — will that fascination ever turn to crypto?

article-image

Some systems improve by failing — and crypto has no choice

article-image

Yield Basis introduces an IL-free AMM design that already dominates BTC DEX liquidity

article-image

Maybe tokenholders don’t need the rights that corporate shareholders have come to expect

Newsletter

The Breakdown

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Blockworks Research

Unlock crypto's most powerful research platform.

Our research packs a punch and gives you actionable takeaways for each topic.

SubscribeGet in touch

Blockworks Inc.

133 W 19th St., New York, NY 10011

Blockworks Network

NewsPodcastsNewslettersEventsRoundtablesAnalytics