The Bull Is Here, Everyone's Gone: Four Population Migrations in Crypto for 2026

Money can find its way back, but people cannot find a reason to stay.

By Fugui

Prologue

On August 19, Bessent at the Treasury doubled the cap on long-term bond repurchases, pushing the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield down from 5.31% to 5.18%, which amounted to a disguised liquidity injection. Bitcoin posted three consecutive bullish candles, rising from $64,000 to $78,000 in just a few days—a 20% jump. Groups started chanting again that the bull market was back.

The money is indeed back. In the third week of August, U.S. spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw a weekly net inflow of $2.61 billion, marking the strongest week since October last year. Bitcoin ETF total assets returned to $96 billion, while Ethereum ETF reached $14.3 billion.

But not everyone came back. During the same period, the global count of monthly active on-chain addresses fell 18% year-over-year, while passive holders rose 16% YoY. By "people," I don't mean the bag-holders who buy and forget, but rather active groups like developers, traders, and governance participants—they are this industry's true "users." More people are holding crypto assets, while fewer are actually using blockchain. Monthly active open-source developers across the industry stand at roughly 28,000, down from a 2022 peak of 45,000, making it smaller than the engineering team of a mid-sized internet company.