3.50pm: Watch: The Impact of Big Money & Institutional Interest on Bitcoin Price Surge
Proactive's Natalie Stoberman and William Farrington breakdown the latest news in the crypto world from the recent surge in Bitcoin's price and the impact of Big Money and institutional interest.
1.40pm: Bitcoin surges higher
Bitcoin has smashed the US$31,000 price point for the third time in two days, with the BTC/USDT adding 1.8% this afternoon.
This strong upside has sent short-BTC positions into a tizzy, with close to US$4mln in shorts getting liquidated in the past four hours.
Ethereum (ETH) was pulled higher and is currently flirting with the US$1,900 price point.
However, two bitcoin hard forks, eCash and Bitcoin Cash BCH), are top of the movers list, having added a whopping 60% and 27% respectively.
BCH has been particularly bullish following its admission to trade on the newly launched institutional crypto exchange EDX.
1pm: Is it altcoin season?
There appears to be a groundswell in the altcoin space right now, some for obvious reasons, others less so.
As for the obvious, bitcoin hard fork Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) continue ripping ahead on the back of their admission to trading on the newly launched, exclusive EDX crypto exchange.
BCH added another 27% overnight to bring its market capitalisation flirtatiously close to US$6bn, while LTC soared 19% to bring its market cap above US$7.4bn.
More surprising is top-10 altcoin Cardano (ADA), which added 7% today, even though it was just delisted from Robinhood.
Solana (SOL), which was also delisted amid an SEC-led crackdown on supposedly unregistered securities, jumped 5% today and a chunky 12% on Thursday.
Buyers likely saw it as an opportunity to buy low on two comparatively underperforming tokens.
Back the bitcoin, the benchmark cryptocurrency is having a bullish session, trading 1.4% higher at US$30,874 as of 1pm.
9am: Bitcoin testing US$31,000
Bitcoin (BTC) bulls pushed the world’s largest cryptocurrency above US$31,000 again in this morning’s Asia trading session, marking the second such occurrence in the space of a week.
The BTC/USDT pair hit a peak of US$31,282 before correcting back to US$30,820 at the time of writing, still a fair ways above the 30k resistance point.
With Binance’s order book appearing fairly balanced between buy and sell orders, could bitcoin’s new range be the 30k to 31k channel?
Bitcoin (BTC) retreats below 31k – Source: currency.com
Big Money remains the primary bullish motivator right now, with yet another major financial institution entering the bitcoin spot ETF arms race.
Joining the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, Fidelity Investments has signalled its intent by filing a spot bitcoin ETF application to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management, WisdomTree, Valkyrie and Bitwise have done similar.
This isn’t the first spot bitcoin ETF rodeo, but it certainly feels like this push has the momentum to get approval across the line.
Whether it be through Fidelity, BlackRock or Wood, an SEC approval of a spot bitcoin ETF has the potential to open up a new world of possibilities for Big Money bets on bitcoin.
It should be noted that post-approval, the process would still be a drawn-out one, but the potential for a sentiment-led rally is high.
Over to Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency is currently changing hands at US$1,884, following a bullish Thursday session and a 1.8% upswing this morning.
Looking back across the week, ETH underperformed against BTC, adding 0.2% compared to 2.7%.
Indeed, bitcoin’s dominance of the broader cryptocurrency market continues to strengthen in the medium term, though at 51.8%, this is slightly down from over 52% yesterday.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at US$1.19tn, up around 1.7% week on week.