BITSTAMP BITCOIN RESERVES OVER TIME

Where does this line come from?

Every coin on Bitcoin sits at an address, and an address is public. What is not public is who owns which one, so the work here is matching addresses to the company that controls them. This page adds up the coins on the addresses we have matched to Bitstamp and states the total at the end of each day, so the line is a record of the pile rather than a single reading of it.

Why is the level a floor?

Read the level as a floor. A company that has never spent from an address gives nobody a reason to connect it, and an address nobody has connected holds coins this line cannot see. So the real pile is this figure or larger, never smaller, and a step up can mean coins arriving or an address we had not recognised before. What the number is not is a promise: Bitstamp owes its customers whatever it owes them, and that is a question about its books rather than about the chain.

What does the movement tell you?

The movement is the part worth watching, and it is the part a single day cannot show. A line that climbs for weeks says coins are being sent to Bitstamp and left there, and one that falls says they are being taken away. Neither is good news or bad news on its own. Compare it with the same line on the other exchanges rather than reading it alone: coin leaving one venue and arriving at another is one decision, and a market-wide total hides it completely.