More than half of bitcoins have not moved for more than a year

While the 3rd halving of Bitcoin approach, bitcoiners seem to "HODL" their digital coins. 10.7 million BTC haven't moved in a year.

Hödl ! The rallying cry of crypto-investors is today more topical, the number of bitcoins have not been moved in the past few months reaching their highest level since January 2017.

In crypto culture, bitcoin holders use the term Hödl to describe the fact of not selling and keeping their BTC despite falling prices on the market. It refers to the post of a user who had misspelled the word hold, or "hold" in English, in 2013 on the famous BitcoinTalk forum.

Based on a report from the data provider Digital Assets Data, relayed by Coindesk, about 10.7 million bitcoins have not moved for more than a year, or almost 60% of the total tokens in circulation (18,149,975 BTC).

On the graph above, we observe that the HODLing decreased very significantly between summer 2017 and spring 2018 and finally started to rise again in autumn 2018.

Lots of bitcoiners would keep their digital coins near the 3rd Bitcoin halving, which is the reduction of mining rewards by half.

In May 2020, the bitcoin miners their remuneration will in fact be divided by 2. The reward will thus go from 12.5 to 6.25 bitcoins per mined block.

This mechanism aims to control inflation of Bitcoin and gradually increases (approximately every 4 years) its rarity. During the first 2 halving, notably the first, its price had recorded a strong progression.

However, unlike the first events of its kind, the 3rd halving is eagerly awaited by bitcoiners and this time may not produce the expected effect.

“Unlike most bitcoiners, I don't think halving is particularly bullish. I believe that most people with a position on Bitcoin understand that supply is limited, so switching shows shouldn't make a difference. In addition, the halving is predictable, so I find it hard to believe it is an information shock, "said Nic Carter, co-founder of the startup Coin Metrics.

In 2019, for the litecoin halving, the price of the token had increased significantly a few months before the event and finally dropped a month before.