BITCOIN RESERVES BY EXCHANGE

What does each card count?

Each exchange card counts the coins sitting on the addresses we have matched to that exchange, read straight off the Bitcoin chain once a day. The picture under the number is the same count every day since the first of January, so you can see whether the pile grew or shrank.

Why read it as a floor?

An exchange can hold coins on addresses we have not matched to it yet, so the real pile is this number or larger. When we match more addresses, a card can jump on one day without any coins moving.

What is the first card?

The first card counts the exchange wallets our tracing can follow, a record that goes back to 2013. Each exchange's card counts the addresses we know for that exchange. The two are different counts and neither contains the other, so the first card is not the sum of the rest.

Why is nothing added up?

These are separate exchanges measuring the same thing, so adding two of them together would produce a number that describes no market. Each bar in the ranking is how large that row is next to the largest row in the table, never a share of a total.

Why watch coins on exchanges?

Coins arriving on an exchange often come before a sale, and coins leaving often go into storage, but neither is a promise.

Where do the numbers come from?

Maketo reads them from the Bitcoin chain itself. The exchanges do not publish them.