The current state of the bitcoin market, which has failed to maintain its upward trend despite recent announcements from many companies adopting it as a reserve asset, has prompted concerns about the existence of paper bitcoin in the hands of custodians.
Paper Bitcoin Woes Arise Due to Lack of Price Action
The concept of paper bitcoin, tokens that don’t exist onchain and are only numbers in the computer of a custodian provider, is worrying members of the cryptocurrency community, who link this to the current lack of movement in the market.
While bitcoin has indeed surpassed its latest record price recently, some believe that the flurry of companies following Strategy’s playbook and purchasing thousands of bitcoin each day has the potential to swing the market upwards wildly.
On social media, user Bitcoin for Freedom commented on the subject. He stated:
Seems like everyone can start a Bitcoin Reserve Company and get tons of Bitcoin for $104k. Something is not adding up.
Furthermore, he implied this would be possible due to the heavy reliance that these companies adopting bitcoin have on custody providers, failing to take control of their tokens directly.
Former Monero Lead Maintainer Riccardo Spagni had also touched on this possibility. In May, Spagni heavily implied that Strategy could be purchasing paper bitcoin, as Michael Saylor had not provided info about the addresses where the company kept its BTC stash.
“You’re not allowed to ask where the Bitcoin ‘supply’ is coming from. $4 billion of ETF buys, $1 billion of Saylor buys. But you’re not allowed to question it,” he stressed, also criticizing the price action regardless of these purchases.
Nonetheless, since then, blockchain analysis platform Arkham has identified several addresses linked to Strategy’s holdings, even after Michael Saylor’s negative stance on revealing this data to general audiences.
Community members criticized this notion, claiming that while there were announcements of purchases, real movements have yet to happen, and this is why price action has not been as explosive as headlines would imply.
Read more: ‘Bad Idea’ Be Damned: Arkham Maps Strategy’s Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Hoard
