While the price of Bitcoin appears completely stagnant today, still ranging in the mid US$27k zone, there is at least one metric that’s encouraging for HODLers.

And it’s a metric that reflects the behaviour of Bitcoin HODLers themselves.

Santiment, a widely used blockchain and cryptocurrencies analytics platform, has published new data that shows the amount of BTC held on crypto exchanges has recently dropped significantly.

In fact, it notes, it’s at its “lowest ratio” (below 6%) since December 2017, which was an extremely bullish time in the market (although it capitulated in January 2018).

This a positive sign because when there are lower amounts of BTC on exchanges, it means less investors and traders are looking to sell. The assumption is that the BTC is instead being safely tucked away in cold storage somewhere.

Which, of course, is exactly where any good Bitcoin holder should be storing it – with private keys/passwords kept in an extremely safe place, naturally, and certainly not just on a file on a laptop, for instance.

(Or, even worse, as popular YouTuber Mr Beast recently admitted, in an online wallet on a laptop next to the Bitcoin private key written on a note headlined “Bitcoin private key”. )

Even Binance, which is still the global exchange with the highest amount of trading activity by volume, has seen a rise in Bitcoin leaving its platform recently.

An increasing lack of trust in centralised crypto platforms has been prevalent ever since the FTX exchange imploded in astounding circumstances late last year, sending shockwaves through the industry. Self-custody of crypto assets has been on the rise since that time.

Binance saw a huge surge in outflows a few days ago after the exchange suspended Bitcoin withdrawals for a couple of hours on May 7 amid a frenzy of Bitcoin network activity and congestion/pending transactions related to the buying of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.

Binance then made a similar temporary withdrawals-suspension move again on May 8.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.18 trillion, down about 0.3% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Not a lot that looks overly encouraging on that crypto majors chart at a first glance.

Santiment has posted a further positive message for Bitcoin and crypto investors today, however, citing the dip seen earlier this morning to US$27.1k as “panic selling”.

It also mentioned the fact crypto prices are showing recovery signs amid a rise in bearish sentiment populating the sphere right now, suggesting that “these moments generally are good buy opportunities”.

 

What’s pumping?

A couple of memecoins.

• Milady Meme Coin (LADYS), (market cap: US$79 million) +9,500%

• Optimus AI (OPTI), (market cap: US$18 million) +39%

This Milady meme coin rise is utterly insane, but I guess nothing should surprise in crypto any more. The token, by the way, has little to do with the popular NFT collection Milady Maker, which was referenced by Elon Musk in a tweet last night (AEST), sending the price of both the NFTs and the coin skyrocketing.

The meme token is merely a non-utility “homage” to the anime-inspired NFT project, created by an artist called Charlotte Fang.

 

What’s dumping?

Pretty much every other prominent memecoin right now…

• Bob Token (BOB), (market cap: US$27 million) -35%

• ORDI (ORDI), (market cap: US$337 million) -26%

• Ben (BEN), (market cap: US$38 million) -25%

• Wojak (WOJAK), (market cap: US$18 million) -18%

• Turbo (TURBO), (market cap: US$61 million) -15%

• Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: US$732 million) -12%

 

Pepe, meanwhile, has been labelled an alt-right “hate symbol” by the exchange Coinbase in a description of the token sent out in an email to Coinbase customers – according to a Cointelegraph report.

The prominent Twitter account “borovik.eth” shared a snippet of the email, which you can read here…

Some of the popular token’s prominent holders have taken umbrage with the description, however, suggesting the exchange is completely out of touch on this one.

While it’s true that the Pepe the frog image was indeed weirdly adopted by alt-right groups a few years ago, it’s also well documented that the cartoon’s original creator, Matt Furie, has been on something of a campaign ever since to “reclaim” Pepe from such groups and re-instil it as nothing more than what it was originally intended – a laidback cartoon character.

The crypto world also adopted the image, sending it to peak meme territory in what’s widely regarded in the space as nothing more than anarchic fun.

In any case, Pepe holders are more than a little ticked off with Coinbase right now.

 

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