Large investors increased their Bitcoin investments over the past week, CoinDesk has reported citing Chainalysis.
The balance of wallets containing at least 1,000 BTC has increased by 142,000 Bitcoins, and the cumulative balance has reached its highest point since early 2021. Analysts believe the growing interest in cryptos is due to renewed fears about inflation:
"Its a confirmation of the view that bitcoin is seen as digital gold, or perhaps institutions are just making a longer term trade on the Bitcoin price."
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At the same time, Chainalysis experts have stressed the Bitcoin protocol should find applications in areas such as Web 3.0 and decentralized finance (DeFi) to remain relevant relative to other blockchains:
"Bitcoin usage has not reached the sophistication of Ethereum or other Layer 1 assets. A decentralized way of wrapping Bitcoin is needed to unlock the use of Bitcoin as high-quality capital in DeFi. If Bitcoin can be used as capital in Web 3.0 then it will have a future as both a scarce fungible asset and as a useful asset in the more innovative side of crypto."
Experts also believe the growth of whale investment shows their support for Bitcoin's current recovery. The decline in such investors' assets during the first quarter foreshadowed the crypto's price collapse in May.