Bitcoin Sets New ATH, Yet Retail Interest Historically Low

On-chain data shows the demand from the retail investors has remained at low levels recently despite the rally Bitcoin has seen to a new high.

Bitcoin Retail Demand 30-Day Change Is At Historically Red Levels

In a CryptoQuant Quicktake post, an analyst has discussed about the latest trend in the 30-day change of the Bitcoin Retail Investor Demand, which is an on-chain indicator that, as its name suggests, calculates the demand for the cryptocurrency that’s present among the retail investors.

Retail investors are the smallest of holders on the network, so their transactions tend to be of a small size. Therefore, in order to track the activity related to this cohort, the metric uses the transaction volume of moves valued less than $10,000.

Below is the chart for the indicator shared by the quant that shows the trend in the Bitcoin Retail Investor Demand 30-day change over the last few years.

The value of the metric appears to have seen a sharp fall in recent days | Source: CryptoQuant

As is visible in the graph, the Bitcoin Retail Investor Demand noted a sharp positive monthly change during the price bull run beyond $100,000 that occurred last year.

This implies the volume of these small holders saw a sharp uptick. This wasn’t anything unusual, as this group tends to find sharp price action to be exciting, so its transfer activity generally rises during rallies.

The scale of the spike, however, was something extraordinary, as it surpassed any other high in the indicator from the past few years. From the chart, it’s apparent that this peak in the indicator occurred near the price top.

In fact, all of the previous large spikes that the analyst has highlighted also took place around some sort of top in the cryptocurrency. Thus, it would appear that an excessive amount of Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) from the retail investors is something that has been bearish for price surges.

Since last year’s spike, the Bitcoin Retail Investor Demand has seen its 30-day change go through a sharp reversal. The metric has now not only dipped into the negative territory, but has also actually fallen to a historical low of -22%.

Interestingly, the indicator’s downtrend has maintained despite the price rally to the new all-time high (ATH) that Bitcoin has seen. As such, it would seem that the retail investors haven’t yet started flooding back into the cryptocurrency.

Given the historical pattern where FOMO proves to be fatal for rallies, this lack of optimism among the retail cohort may allow the current run to continue for a while longer.