Bitcoin Active Addresses Rise to Their Highest in More Than a Year

[Mercury]

Bitcoin is seeing the highest level of active addresses since February 2018 when prices were much higher.

As can be seen above, they reached a low of just 360,000 active addresses at the beginning of the year, rising since to now almost 800,000.

That’s a level that has not been seen since February 2018 for a brief period and since January 2018 more generally when bitcoin’s price was much higher.

Bitcoin’s price on weekly candles, May 2019

The number of active addresses measures unique addresses that are engaging in a transaction.

It can best be seen as the number of active users with the caveat that a user can transact with more than one address.

That however applies at any level, so a change in active addresses in this case suggests there is an increasing number of bitcoin users and thus demand for the bitcoin network is increasing.

This can best be seen in the number of daily transactions which too have made a yearly high recently.

Bitcoin transaction numbers, May 2019

That’s a very nice round bottom, or a U recovery, that looks a bit like a cup and handle, although due to the 1MB limit transactions here can’t go much higher.

Price can however as 2017 showed capacity doesn’t appear to be much of a factor presumably because most people use bitcoin as a sort of investment.
From the price chart above we can see there was a clear cup and handle from November to April, with it then playing out in May.

With a stretch you could consider it from July to May since a cup and handle isn’t quite a painting, and if this reaches all time high it would be a massive cup and handle which would look something like this:

Bitcoin massive cup and handle.

You’ll notice the dates, 2014 to 2016, and you’ll notice the price, here about $1,200.

The above now doesn’t have a shape and looks like nothing when you factor in 2017, but you can just about make out a cup and handle from around March 2013 to November 2013.

2017 to 2019 would also be just about the right time line, so with all indicators increasing, a massive cup and handle could certainly happen. Whether it will, remains to be seen.

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