In cryptocurrency slang, shrimpers are holders who have less than 1 BTC in their wallet. Right now, the number of shrimpers in the market is growing as fast as possible. Even at the peak of the historic bull market in late 2017, they weren’t arriving in such numbers.

Shrimp are near the bottom of bitcoin’s joke food chain, just above plankton. The lowest kind of cryptocurrency organisms are holders with less than 0.05 BTC. This is not the only classification of bitcoin holders, but it gives an idea of the size and importance of the various market participants.

Bitcoin shrimp are gaining ground

Previously, the number of small bitcoin addresses is steadily growing despite a deep correction in the market. The number of wallets with balances of over 0.01 BTC and over 0.1 BTC has been steadily increasing since early 2021.

However, this trend accelerated in mid-June 2022. During previous market cycles, such dynamics in the bitcoin network indicated a bull market acceleration. In contrast, during major market corrections, onchain analysis generally indicated a slight increase, stagnation, or even a decrease in the number of addresses with a balance of less than 0.1 BTC.

Well-known analyst in cryptocurrency circles @WClementeIII tweeted a 90-day graph of changes in the number of coins in the hands of small holders (no more than 1 BTC in the wallet). It shows the strong growth of bitcoins in shrimp wallets. The current values have left behind the levels of late 2017, when the market was dominated by bullish sentiment and the BTC exchange rate reached an all-time high of $20,000 at the time.

During that time, BTC managed to plummet to $69,000, fall 70% in price, and return to the landmark level of 2017. Bearish sentiment and extreme fear are in stark contrast to the euphoria and exorbitant greed that reigned over the market in late 2017. And yet the shrimpers are behaving just as they did then. Moreover, they are buying bitcoin even more willingly, believing that now is the right time to do so.

Why shrimp are buying BTC

The classic market axiom is that “retail is never right.” With 2017, it’s clear: Small investors were buying at the peak and big whales were dumping coins. They sold at the best possible time. But the situation is different now. Shrimp accumulates bitcoin in large quantities after it has already lost 70% of its value.

But there is a third possibility: the increase in the number of holders with a balance less than 1 BTC, does not indicate an influx of small private investors. It’s possible that people are simply splitting their investments, opening many wallets with small balances. This was pointed out by another well-known crypto analyst @woonomic. He wrote:

“Keep in mind that such data on the number of holders is extremely unstable and tends to be overly optimistic on short intervals. It takes a couple of years for the statistics to settle down. For example, it is assumed that small transactions are made by new people and then it turns out that they belong to an existing investor who has more than 1 BTC.”

Cryptocurrency podcast host @VentureCoinist, thinks the influx of shrimp is still a sign of an impending downturn.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see what happened the last time this metric went up this much.”

Finally, another user @fusillifadi, posted data that seems to support Clemente’s assumption of organic shrimp growth. Citing data from cooper.co, he provided a graph of the average daily growth rate of wallets with balances under 1 BTC.

Since the end of 2021, year, we have seen a clear trend of shrimp growth that can only be compared to 2017. Although the last period of 2017 saw a much larger increase, the current numbers are ahead of the trend recorded in 2018-2021.

Shrimp buy bitcoins mostly from miners. In 2017, 49% of bitcoins sold by miners went to wallets with a balance of less than 1 BTC. In 2022, that figure rose to 75%. Other onchain statistics confirm the surrender of miners. Thus, we get the answer to the question of who supplies bitcoins to the shrimpers.