For the first time since the historic price rise in December 2017, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) reached $19,000 on November 24. At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin was trading at $19,123, reflecting a gain of 2.9% in the past 24 hours.
There are three main reasons for the numero uno crypto’s strong rise. The key criteria aiding Bitcoin’s current rally is purchase by whales, declining reserves at cryptocurrency exchanges and sharp rise in volumes.
Throughout this month, whale clusters continue to form as Bitcoin gained ground. Such clusters are formed when Bitcoins are bought continuously by whales around a certain price level and do not transfer them.
Through a study of the buying pattern and price trend, analysts have come to a conclusion that whale clusters indicate accumulation and are not diluted in the short-term.
The major difference between the current Bitcoin price rise and earlier price cycles is that the latest uptrend has demonstrated to be long-lasting. As a matter of fact, each whale cluster indicates that whale accumulation backed every key support level reclaimed by Bitcoin.
A week back, when Bitcoin declined to about $17,200, analysts at Whalemap opined that the latest whale support is available at $16,411. They stated:
Bubbles indicate prices at which whales have purchased BTC that they are currently holding. Bubbles also visualise support levels.
Last time we bounced from $15762 and had a 15% price increase. Is the new bubble at $16411 going to hold this time as well? pic.twitter.com/aOGqxd4hX4
— whalemap (@whale_map) November 18, 2020
Thenceforth, Bitcoin has recorded a few more declines below $18,000 but has rebounded above $18,800 against the backdrop of strong buying pressure. Additionally, data provided by Santiment, a webpage dedicated to on-chain market analysis, displays a comparable trend. Santiment academics identified that the number of Bitcoin whales considerably rose in the past few months. They detailed:
?? The amount of #Bitcoin whales with at least 10,000 coins (currently $185M or more) has ballooned to 114 the past couple days as prices soared above $18k. Additionally, the amount of holders with at least 1,000 $BTC ($18.5M) has hit an ATH of 2,449! https://t.co/3QoHaq4MAn pic.twitter.com/7cOaU5o3QF
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) November 20, 2020
A trend which remained unchanged throughout this year, particularly during the bull cycle, was the ongoing decline in Bitcoin exchange reserves. In general, investors and whales move Bitcoins to cryptocurrency exchanges when they wish to dilute a portion of their holdings.
Therefore, the recent decline in cryptocurrency exchange reserves implies there are negligible sellers in the market. A crypto trader, who is known by nick name “Byzantine General” stated that Bitcoin continues to be bought whenever spot exchanges increase their reserves. He stated:
Everytime spot exchanges add to their $BTC reserves it gets depleted almost immediately.
Don’t you get it?
There’s literally not enough supply ? pic.twitter.com/PEfqtA3YJO— Byzantine General (@ByzGeneral) November 21, 2020
Since September, both institutional and spot exchange trading volumes have been on the rise. At CME, open interest of Bitcoin futures and options has already crossed above $1 billion in November and Binance’ BTC/USDT pair has consistently recorded more than $1.50 billion in daily volume.
Multiple data indicates that spot market – not derivatives or futures markets – has been leading the uptrend. Such a scenario has made the rally more sustainable and minimizes the threat of huge price reversals. When futures market represents a major portion of volume during a Bitcoin’s rally, there is a huge risk of cascading winding-up of positions.
