After a three-week consolidation, Bitcoin resumed its ascent to new all-time highs and renewed them around $ 61,800. On the FTX December futures, the cryptocurrency is already trading above $ 74,000.
“This is the leverage, extremely optimistic traders are pushing the curve up ,” writes analyst Alex Kruger.
According to the Bybt service, funding rates in the futures market have partially entered the overheated zone. On Binance, the figure climbed to 0.0945%, signaling the prevalence of margin-long positions. On OKEx and Huobi, values remain closer to neutral for now – 0.0145% and 0.0367% – and overall are still significantly lower than could be seen in February before the multibillion-dollar liquidation.
According to the Skew service, participants in the options market estimate the probability of a rise in the price of bitcoin above $ 100,000 by the end of March at 1%, but by the end of April it reaches 8%, and by the end of December – 20%.
Statistics were collected when bitcoin was below $ 60,000. To reach this level, it must rise another 62%. For context, the price of the cryptocurrency is up 44% from the February lows.
Analyst Ben Lilly notes in a recent report that over the past week, Bitcoin has been moving in a «two steps forward, one back» pattern, and its price rally has been accompanied by four 5% pullbacks. According to the analyst, this is a sign of healthy profit-taking.
Lilly states that wallets between 100 and 1,000 BTC currently hold 63,000 more BTC than on February 28th.
“This class of wallets was among the best at predicting the uptick in 2017. The last time we observed such an aggressive accumulation was in August 2017. The high of that market cycle was not seen for another four months. We are trying to convey that bitcoin has room to grow. If he decides to jerk, he will do it , ”writes Ben Lilly.
Analyst Philip Swift supports his colleague, noting that Bitcoin balances across Coinbase and Bitstamp wallets have dropped significantly since mid-December 2020.
Swift says that this is due to the «people and institutions that derive from Bitcoin kriptobirzh on cold storage.» Some of these coins are converted into WBTC tokens for use in the decentralized finance ( DeFi ) space , so they cannot be considered fully withdrawn from circulation, he admits.
Over the past weeks, investors who have held Bitcoin for less than three years have begun to reduce their assets, and for more than three years – to increase them.
According to Swift, this indicates the continued possibility of a significant rise in the price of bitcoin.
“From this graph, you can see where we are now in relation to the 2017 cycle, as the lines behave in a similar way and approach the middle of the cycle,” he adds.
ExoAlpha investment director David Lifshitz claims that from February 22 to March 11, Bitcoin began to form a «cup and handle» pattern, indicating a continuation of the bullish trend. The decline on March 11 became the “top of the cup” and was caused by profit-taking after the rise from $ 45,000 to $ 57,000. A slight pullback in the rate followed by a continuation upwards in this case will form a “handle”.
