January was a record month for Bitcoin price and network activity, with more than 22.3 million unique addresses actively sending or receiving BTC in 31 days.
The milestone was identified by cryptographic market data aggregator Glassnode, who tweeted that January had seen the highest monthly number of unique active addresses in Bitcoin’s history:
#Bitcoin network activity at ATH.
In January, more than 22.3 million unique addresses were active on the sending or receiving network $ BTC – the highest monthly number in Bitcoin history to date
Graphic: https://t.co/yPPOix0KFx pic.twitter.com/yjWwYbRC98
– glassnode (@glassnode) February 1, 2021
The peak of activity in January broke the previous record of more than 21 million active addresses in December 2017. Since 2017, the number of unique addresses involving Bitcoin has not dropped below 10 million per month.
Despite the increase in exclusive active portfolios, Glassnode also noted that the number of “active entities” in the Bitcoin network has decreased significantly since the peak of new highs in early January.
Glassnode defines an entity as “a cluster of addresses that are controlled by the same network entity”.
Bitcoin trading volumes reached record levels last month, as Bitcoin surpassed $ 30,000, recording historical records close to $ 42,000 on January 8, before posting three weeks of aggressive consolidation.
On February 2, the American stock exchange Kraken announced that it had processed more volume of transactions during January 2021 than during the entire year 2019, with $ 56 billion in assets changing hands on the platform last month.
The month witnessed numerous disruptions to the cryptocurrency trading experience, with Kraken and Coinbase announcing measures to prevent future failures in the event of increased traffic and volume.