⭐ Merited by Algominer2 (1)
I think "retail" was quite active with memecoins in late 2023 and early 2024, and we may have seen a little pause since March/April (the Runes wave in April may have been the last phase where they were really "hot", although altcoins were already declining then).
The Active Addresses indicator is currently low, which could indicate low retail involvement at the moment. It's actually an interesting indicator to discuss, for example the indicator was historically correlated somewhat with price, but since 2023 it took a downward fall, see here. As the decline coincided with the Ordinals wave and in April near the halving the lowest point of this indicator was recorded, it is likely that this indicator is correlated negatively with fees ("higher fees, less active addresses"). It is recovering since the Runes frenzy was over, but very slowly. May be also a seasonal thing as July/August are the main holiday month in many countries in the Northern hemisphere.
However, where "retail" usually really shows up is in the last third or quarter or so of a bull market.
In addition, also "retailers" have access to Bitcoin ETFs in more countries now, most will be focused on the US spot ETF market even if they are in other countries; in addition some of the other ETFs (e.g. the european Jacobi ETF) being restricted to institutional investors. People who have already a securities account at a broker may chose to invest in an ETF instead of in Bitcoin.
PS: regarding
The Active Addresses indicator is currently low, which could indicate low retail involvement at the moment. It's actually an interesting indicator to discuss, for example the indicator was historically correlated somewhat with price, but since 2023 it took a downward fall, see here. As the decline coincided with the Ordinals wave and in April near the halving the lowest point of this indicator was recorded, it is likely that this indicator is correlated negatively with fees ("higher fees, less active addresses"). It is recovering since the Runes frenzy was over, but very slowly. May be also a seasonal thing as July/August are the main holiday month in many countries in the Northern hemisphere.
However, where "retail" usually really shows up is in the last third or quarter or so of a bull market.
In addition, also "retailers" have access to Bitcoin ETFs in more countries now, most will be focused on the US spot ETF market even if they are in other countries; in addition some of the other ETFs (e.g. the european Jacobi ETF) being restricted to institutional investors. People who have already a securities account at a broker may chose to invest in an ETF instead of in Bitcoin.
PS: regarding
ahem
Monero had indeed a really good ROI in the last months. But that was not followed by most other altcoins, even Ethereum lost a lot of traction (despite the ETFs). And the reason for Monero's growth is that it was seriously undervalued after the Binance delisting, recovering slowly and steadily. Zoom out a bit and you'll see the whole picture