A Q3 2023 on-chain report by crypto market intelligence firm IntoTheBlock revealed that addresses holding at least 0.1% of bitcoin’s (BTC) supply saw strong net inflows throughout the year’s third quarter.

IntoTheBlock said these addresses recorded a single-day inflow of $600 million despite BTC plunging to $25,000, showing they are quietly bullish.

Strong Net Inflows in Q3

Following the single-day inflow of $600 million in BTC, the same category of wallets experienced three other spikes of more than $400 million in net inflows, indicating a quiet build-up of strong interest.

Notably, these substantial net inflows took place while centralized exchanges saw outflows. IntoTheBlock believes the wallets belong to organic buyers and are not just addresses from centralized trading platforms.

However, the patience of the holders may be tested if the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delays its decisions on the applications for Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to IntoTheBlock.

While BTC saw substantial net inflows to addresses holding at least 0.1% of its supply, the asset recorded negligible net outflows of $90 million from centralized exchanges throughout the quarter. The figure is $1.3 billion less outflows than Q2 2023 by $140 million more than Q3 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Bitcoin fees for Q3 2023 slumped by over 71% compared to Q2 when BRC-20 tokens and the Ordinals protocol introduced a way to trade meme tokens on the network. Nevertheless, gas fees on the Bitcoin network have more than doubled since Q3 2022, showing that Ordinals brought sustained demand to the ecosystem.

Long-Term Bitcoin Holders on the Rise

Meanwhile, on-chain metrics show that the number of long-term BTC holders is growing, and the upsurge is comparable with a cycle seen in 2017, which led to the massive price appreciation of the crypto asset in 2020.

CryptoPotato reported that the growth in long-term BTC holders will have significant consequences in 2024, which will be the beginning of a bull cycle that soars into 2025. Considering that only about two million bitcoins remain to be mined, analysts believe the crypto community may be on the verge of a supply shock that will massively impact bitcoin’s value.