Glassnode published some data yesterday, and the timing is interesting—just two days after Vitalik warned that AI could weaken cryptographic security.
The data:
Over the past year, BTC held in reused addresses increased from 3.79 million to 4.33 million—21.5% of the circulating supply, up 14%.
Including structurally exposed BTC (traditional P2PK addresses and Taproot), the total amount of BTC whose public keys are already visible on-chain reaches 6.26 million, or 31.2% of the circulating supply—the highest proportion since 2016.
Why this matters:
The security of Bitcoin addresses is based on “hiding the public key.” When your address has never made a transaction, your public key is hidden; once you’ve made a transaction, your public key is permanently exposed on-chain.
Reusing addresses means the same public key is used repeatedly, where anyone on-chain can see it—including future quantum computers that could theoretically crack elliptic-curve signature algorithms, as well as the AI-powered mathematical tools Vitalik just warned about.
Breaking it down:
4.33 million BTC are due to user behavior—address reuse.
1.94 million BTC are due to structural reasons—of these, 1.71 million are in early P2PK addresses (including about 1.1 million BTC associated with Satoshi, which cannot be moved unless Satoshi acts); 222,000 are in Taproot addresses.
About 1.79 million exposed BTC are held by exchanges—this portion is considered at risk of network attacks and regulatory scrutiny.
The practical advice is simple: use a new address every time you receive BTC, and stop using that address once you’ve spent the funds. Bitcoin wallets offer this feature for free; the problem is that too few people use it.
$BTC
#比特币重复使用地址持有433万枚btc
The data:
Over the past year, BTC held in reused addresses increased from 3.79 million to 4.33 million—21.5% of the circulating supply, up 14%.
Including structurally exposed BTC (traditional P2PK addresses and Taproot), the total amount of BTC whose public keys are already visible on-chain reaches 6.26 million, or 31.2% of the circulating supply—the highest proportion since 2016.
Why this matters:
The security of Bitcoin addresses is based on “hiding the public key.” When your address has never made a transaction, your public key is hidden; once you’ve made a transaction, your public key is permanently exposed on-chain.
Reusing addresses means the same public key is used repeatedly, where anyone on-chain can see it—including future quantum computers that could theoretically crack elliptic-curve signature algorithms, as well as the AI-powered mathematical tools Vitalik just warned about.
Breaking it down:
4.33 million BTC are due to user behavior—address reuse.
1.94 million BTC are due to structural reasons—of these, 1.71 million are in early P2PK addresses (including about 1.1 million BTC associated with Satoshi, which cannot be moved unless Satoshi acts); 222,000 are in Taproot addresses.
About 1.79 million exposed BTC are held by exchanges—this portion is considered at risk of network attacks and regulatory scrutiny.
The practical advice is simple: use a new address every time you receive BTC, and stop using that address once you’ve spent the funds. Bitcoin wallets offer this feature for free; the problem is that too few people use it.
$BTC
#比特币重复使用地址持有433万枚btc