What is Dormant supply?
Coins that have not moved for a long period, often used as a proxy for long-term holding or permanent loss.
The chain shows that coins have not moved. It cannot show why. Dormancy covers deliberate long-term holding, lost keys, deceased owners and cold storage that simply has not been touched.
Estimates of permanently lost bitcoin — often in the millions — are built on assumptions about dormancy thresholds and should be quoted with their assumptions attached.
Related terms
HODL waves
A chart banding the supply by how long each coin has been sitting unmoved.
On-chain dataCirculating supply
The quantity of bitcoin that has been mined, verifiable directly against the issuance schedule.
Lightning & scalingOn-chain
A transaction recorded in a Bitcoin block, as opposed to one settled off-chain in a channel or inside a…
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.