Smaller investors are piling into Bitcoin this week as the price dips, according to the latest data.

According to data provided by blockchain intelligence company Glassnode, the number of unique addresses holding at least 0.01 BTC (around $87 at press time) rose to a new high of 8,478,746 on Sunday.

The growth in lower-volume traders comes as a two-week low of $8,630 was recorded on Monday.

“Retail investors are likely in an accumulation phase,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant told Coin Desk.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been in something of a sideways oscillation pattern over the last couple of weeks, but this could soon change say many experts.

Kiana Danial, CEO of Invest Diva, recently told Forbes: “On the bright side, once this pullback is over, Bitcoin bulls could regain energy to potentially break through the $10,000 resistance and bring the price back towards $14,000,” she added, identifying this as one of the key resistance levels after $10,000.

In the first week of this month, Bitcoin rallied 102% from its March 16 low of $4,944 to $10,025 - the first time the digital currency had eclipsed $10,000 since mid-February.

At that time, it was in anticipation of the third-ever Bitcoin halving event and as institutional investors were starting to increase their exposure.  

As Business Insider reported at the time, “the billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones would start buying Bitcoin”, telling clients that “one of his funds could have a low-single-digit percentage allocation to Bitcoin futures.”

Mr Jones’ motivation for the allocation was to shield against inflation.