Ledger CEO says more and more retail buyers continue to eye Bitcoin, with non-zero addresses on the rise.
The crypto executive noted this during an interview with CNBC at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
On the issue of the exponential growth in the price of Bitcoin over the past year, Gauthier said it was all due to retail interest in cryptocurrency. He thinks that more people want Bitcoin and therefore the demand is driving up the prices.
He noted that the trend over the past few weeks has been that more addresses have been created, with a growing number holding the minimum number of BTC. The Bitcoin network saw almost 1 million new addresses in November, with BTC price at the time having raced to its all-time high of $69,044 on 10 November.
The Ledger chief also added that the number of retailers is increasing relative to whales, suggesting that it is small buyers who continue to drive the price of Bitcoin higher.
“There is a profound retail trend everywhere in the world; they trust Bitcoin more and more. It’s the people that will push the price up,” he said.
Bitcoin bounced back below the $40,000 hit on Monday and is currently trading around $43,700. The upward pressure comes at a time when U.S. inflation data shows a 7% year-on-year jump, the fastest rate since 1982.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin flows from exchanges have continued despite the recent sell-off. On-chain data analysis platform Santiment says this is a signal of less sell-off pressure.
On a different note, Gauthier spoke about the broader crypto space and noted that the space has witnessed an explosion of projects that have outperformed Bitcoin.
Last year saw Ethereum, which notched more than 455% in yearly gains, outpace Bitcoin’s +75% upmove. While ETH is expected to reach a new peak as its network grows amid institutional inflows, the Ledger founder believes the crypto industry will also be looking at projects like Solana and other top ten projects.
For Solana, the Ledger CEO says he already has a great value proposition over his non-fungible token (NFT) offering. This, he noted, could be expected from many of the protocols as they mature, driving adoption and pricing.
Gauthier however says that last year’s massive rally could see several cryptocurrencies settle into a consolidation phase.
On blockchain networks, his main conclusion was that tokens are the “security” of the blockchain network. As such, he believes a network is only as secure as the price level of its native token.
