The amount of Bitcoin addresses with more than 1,000 BTC ($8.3 million) is growing at the same pace this year as pre-2014, according to new data.

Bitcoin statistician Willy Woo has uploaded a chart of Bitcoin address growth by balance to social media, which reveals the network is echoing a trend from its early years.

He stated: “The rate of growth of 1000BTC addresses now matches the early growth in Bitcoin's network.”

The statistician added that demand for major Bitcoin balances at significantly higher prices than five years ago points to wealthier investors joining the cryptocurrency space.

Whilst individuals generating addresses with over 1,000 BTC at that time did so out of curiosity, Woo commented, this signifies the incentives this year are solely financial.

He went on to say: “IMO we're likely in a new renaissance of Bitcoin, this one is powered by capital influx of high net worth investors, while the early one was from the tech savvy who were bootstrapping the network. Super Bullish.”

As per a Coin Telegraph report, the data highlights the trajectory of balances surpassing 1,000 BTC registered at the start of this year following a period of flat growth kicking off at the end of 2013.

The number of addresses with more than $100,000 has also hit a record high, as reported by Coin Telegraph in September.

At the time of writing, 3,070 addresses held over 1,000 BTC each, making up 0.01% of the total, according to BitInfoCharts’ Bitcoin Rich List.

The report stated: “The Bitcoin Rich List reveals that the holdings of the 10-100 BTC group — split between 140,940 unique addresses — are worth in excess of $46.1 billion. Meanwhile, among the 1,942 addresses holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC each, the total value of their holdings is greater than $48.2 billion. Just four addresses hold between 100,000 and 1 million BTC, worth a total of $5.35 billion.”