Bitcoin's exchange supply has dropped to an eight-year low, sitting at roughly 5.6% of total supply — and it's been flat for the past month. Despite a recent price recovery, holders aren't moving coins to exchanges, signaling a stubborn lack of selling pressure. On the other side, Ethereum's exchange supply has crept up from 4.2% to 4.6% over the past ten days, though it remains near its lowest levels since public trading began in 2015.
The Bitcoin side
Bitcoin is currently trading around $79,400, down about 0.9% over the last seven days. The fact that exchange balances haven't budged even as price reclaimed some ground suggests the people holding those coins are in no rush to cash out. That's a pretty stark contrast to previous cycles, where rallies often triggered a wave of deposits. Right now, the outflow spigot is basically shut.
Ethereum's reversal
Ethereum's recent 0.4 percentage point increase in exchange supply breaks a longer trend of aggressive declines. Over the past year, a lot of ETH has left exchanges — staking, DeFi, you name it. So the uptick over the last ten days is small but notable. It's not a flood, but it's a reversal after a long period of steady withdrawals.
What ETFs mean for the numbers
Off-chain investment routes like spot ETFs have shifted the paradigm. Exchange reserves alone no longer capture the full market picture. If people are buying Bitcoin through ETFs, that demand doesn't show up as a drop in exchange supply — the coins sit with custodians tied to the funds. So the low exchange supply might be even more bullish than the raw number suggests, or it might just mean the metric is less relevant. Either way, it's a reminder that the old dashboard doesn't tell the whole story.
Flat but steady
The flatness of Bitcoin's exchange supply for a full month, even with a price bump, is the headline here. It's not a panic, it's not a frenzy — it's just holders holding. For Ethereum, the question is whether that 0.4% uptick is a blip or the start of a trend. The fact that supply is still near all-time lows tilts the odds toward blip, but it's worth watching over the next few weeks.
