While the markets have been restless with speculation, it appears that quietly and covertly, more than half of total circulating Litecoin, have been locked away and hoarded according to data insights provided by bitinfocharts.

teleThe trend of on chain inactivity has steadily been growing and can be seen across other digital assets most notably bitcoin, where likewise, just over 10M bitcoin have become for more than a year.

The majority of this Litecoin appear to have been locked up during November / December period in 2018 where the markets hit their current lowest points in this cycle. It may only be a coincidence however, the price correlation would appear to support the idea that a lot of accumulation occurred during this time.

We know that at least 12M of these coins are held by Coinbase on behalf of its users, as was noted in previous research conducted by Litecoin.com back in December of 2018. We are not aware of any other addresses listed being owned by other large services or exchanges although it is highly likely they are.

Even taking this into consideration, the main conclusion one may make from this data is that there are a significant number of coins now held by strong hands and long term bulls who have been accumulating and thusly removing potential downward pressure on the markets.

Going back 2 years to the climax of the last bull market we can see that almost 15M Litecoin have remained inactive. Even looking to the start of 2017 from now, over 4M Litecoin have remained unmoving, while an unknown number are probably burned, the rest are likely in the unshakeable hands of early adopters.

Open data such as this provides invaluable insights into network participation and is unique to public blockchain assets, while many rely on TA to analyse price movements, on chain data may hold the key to more long term confidence and direction.