Crypto news: Bitcoin above $30,000. Institutional 'whales' activity increases?

Cryptocurrencies are seeing a slight correction after Bitcoin's euphoric gains last week. At the same time BTC' is trading above $30,000 for the highest since mid-April. It surprised investors with its broken correlation with the Nasdaq index and gold prices, however, it clearly seems to be favored by the weaker US dollar. After applications to create ETFs by BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and WisdomTree, speculation around institutional investor interest and the purchase of BTC by so-called 'whales' is growing. When market depth is low, even a small increase in buy orders can significantly affect price volatility.

• A number of market observers have recently expressed the belief that Bitcoin prices are now being speculated on mainly by professionals and institutions.According to the vice president of India's largest crypto exchange CoinDCX, Vijay Ayyar, large investment funds fueled the recent surge.
• The speculation was confirmed by Jamie Sly, head of Research at CCData. He pointed out that a close examination of the Bitcoin market indicated high buying activity of wallets with balances above 5 BTC in recent days - the rally was supported by the lower depth of the market;
• According to Kaiko Research, 1% away from the average BTC price, depth has fallen 20% over the past year. Daily BTC trading volume has fallen more than 75% from a record $105 billion in 2021 to about $24 billion today. These two factors further support the dynamic rally in the BTC price;
• WAVES dynamically gained almost 100% in a few days thanks to the so-called WavesDAO, which is designed to help developers build projects on the Waves Blockchain. DWF labs expressed support for the initiative. The price has risen in an environment of Bitcoin rally and extremely low liquidity with narrow market depth.

BITCOIN, D1 interval. Looking at the chart, we can see that the main support in case of a correction is the level of $27,700 where the 23.6 Fibonacci retracement of the upward wave from the fall of 2022 runs. However, the key to the momentum itself may be the SMA50 (yellow line). Previously - during the increases it was not violated by the price and its breaking heralded periods of weakness. Currently, the SMA50 runs around $29,000 - this is the limit of momentum. If Bitcoin manages to hold this support - the base scenario is further growth. Source: xStation5Bitcoin has recently broken correlation with gold (GOLD, yellow chart) and the Nasdaq index (US100, blue chart) - gaining at a time when both assets have come under pressure. As an 'uncorrelated' asset, it can now be seen as potentially attractive for diversifying institutional portfolios. The strategy of reducing risk by selecting uncorrelated assets is being adopted by Bridgewater's Ray Dalio, among others. During an interview with Bloomberg, Hugh Howard, who once managed the Eclectica Asset Management fund - pointed to BTC as an asset that could gain more than gold in the event of a crisis. He emphasized the relative small marke cap and the positive impact of interest from Wall Street. Source: xStation5

Have whales really been buying Bitcoin during sell-off?

Bitcoin's illiquid supply has been growing since November 2022 indicating an increasing role of long-term investors. The rate of change shows an average of 146k BTC sent to illiquid portfolios / month. Illiquid supply reached a new ATH - 15.2 million BTC. At that time when crypto exchange balances fell to the lowest levels since 2018. In the long term, the phenomenon should support the upward trend. It illustrates the uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrency entities - but not Bitcoin itself. Source: Glassnode

Glassnode compared the monthly change in BTC wallets of different investor groups to the volume of new BTC received by miners over the past month. Entities holding less than 100 BTC increased their reserves by 250% against the supply allocated to miners (buying about 2,300 BTC per day). Source: Glassnode

So-called 'sharks entities' holding between 100 and 1,000 BTC have added BTC equivalent to 36% of the total supply mined since then over the past month. However, the data shows that whales (above 1,000k BTC) sold BTC worth about 70% of the miners' total supply during the recent declines.  However, Glassnode still has not added an up-to-date analysis showing the situation during last week's dynamic rally - we will see in the near future if it shows a change in this trend. Source: GlassnodeWAVES, D1 interval. The price has risen by almost 100% in recent days and has begun a correction. The key for the bulls will be a return to the area of $2.7 - it could herald a break of the peaks of February, this year at $3.2. It seems that the key support may turn out to be the SMA200 (red line) - at $1.9. The price broke above the key average to continue the trend for the first time in almost two years. Source: xStation5