Glassnode reported that Bitcoin network activity reached a new high with more than 22.3 million BTC addresses active in January
January 2021 was a record month both for Bitcoin’s price and for activity on the network. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization saw over 22.3 million unique addresses actively sending or receiving BTC during the month.
This milestone was first highlighted by crypto data aggregator Glassnode, which noted the historic monthly high on Twitter:
#Bitcoin network activity at ATH.
In January, more than 22.3 million unique addresses were active in the network sending or receiving $BTC – the highest monthly number in Bitcoin’s history to date 📈
Chart: https://t.co/yPPOix0KFx pic.twitter.com/yjWwYbRC98
— glassnode (@glassnode) February 1, 2021
Despite the rise in unique active wallets holding Bitcoin, Glassnode also observed that the number of “active entities” on the Bitcoin network fell significantly after BTC reached new highs in early January. Glassnode defines an entity as “a cluster of addresses controlled by the same network user.”
Trading volume for Bitcoin was also notable in January, hitting record levels. During the month, Bitcoin’s price climbed past $30,000 and reached an all-time high of $42,000 on January 8. Since then, however, volume steadily declined as BTC entered a roughly three-week consolidation phase.
Daily BTC/USD chart. Source: TradingView
On February 2, American crypto exchange Kraken announced it had processed more transactions in January 2021 than it did during the entire year of 2019, reporting $56 billion in assets moved on its platform that month.
The surge in activity during the first month of the year caused outages at several cryptocurrency exchanges, largely driven by the sudden spike in trading volume and traffic. Leading exchanges including Kraken and Coinbase said they planned to implement measures to help prevent future disruptions if traffic and volume surge again.