Bitcoin price tops above $18,000 for first time in almost a month, while Ether held strong above $1,300
Bitcoin price recently traded at $17,500, nearly unchanged from the previous 24 hours. For the first time since FTX went bankrupt, three-month BTC futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, largely seen as a proxy for institutional involvement, are trading at a premium to the cryptocurrency’s going spot market price. At the time of writing, BTC is changing hands at $18,203.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart | Source: TradingView
Bitcoin price, Ether continue run up ahead of U.S. inflation report; Avalanche surges
On Wednesday, we’ll be looking at some on-chain statistics for indicators of optimism or concern in the bitcoin market. Like many financial markets, we’re likely to see a mix of the two. The question is whether bitcoin’s mini-rally above $17,000 this week is sustainable.
A recent drop in new bitcoin addresses is one area of possible worry. According to Glassnode data, higher BTC prices tend to result in more bitcoin wallets as interest grows, and vice versa. While BTC traded relatively flat, the drop in addresses in November may cause alarm. This could mean one of two things:
- Markets did not believe bitcoin prices had achieved a bottom at the moment.
- Whether BTC had bottomed or not, investors believed there were greater chances elsewhere.
Bitcoin Transfer Volume | Source: Glassnode
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), has recently followed BTC’s lead, trading flat at roughly $1,340. “Ethereum has jumped above $1,400 for the first time since November 7th. Over the past 10 weeks, ~3,000 new shark addresses (holding 100 to 10,000 ETH) have shown up on the network. 48,556 shark addresses is the highest level recorded since Feb, 2021”, Santiment reported.
XRP rose 6.9% to $0.37 for a 7.8% weekly gain. James Finlan, a veteran federal prosecutor and defense lawyer, tweeted that the SEC has filed an opposition motion to Ripple’s motion to seal documents, claiming they should be open to the public. The dispute began two years ago and appears to be nearing a summary judgment, with Ripple predicting a resolution in the first part of this year last week.
Bitcoin SV (BSV), the native token of the Bitcoin SV network, fell 15% after Robinhood announced on Wednesday that it would discontinue support for BSV on January 25. The price of BSV went from $44 to as low as $37 before rising to $40 as of press time. The Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (Bitcoin SV) blockchain was formed in 2018 due to a hard split from the Bitcoin Cash network, a hard fork from the original Bitcoin blockchain.
Following a Twitter thread from crypto analyst Rekt Capital that suggests an optimistic prognosis for the network around its next halving event in July this year, Litecoin gained 4.2% to $84.23. Litecoin’s halving, like Bitcoin’s, means miners will earn half their current payout of 6.25 LTC to combat inflation by maintaining scarcity.
Following news that the network has partnered with web hosting service Amazon Web Services to “accelerate enterprise, institutional, and government use of blockchain,” Avalanche rose 28.8% to $16.37, its highest price since early November. Recently, Exodus, a leading Web3 wallet platform, announced Avalanche’s support.
The Federal Reserve will closely monitor the figure ahead of its meeting later this month to decide how to modify interest rates in the United States. The Fed boosted interest rates dramatically in 2022 to combat inflation, sending stock indices lower and raising fears of an impending recession.
The total crypto market capitalization rose 3.78% to $889 billion, while trading volume fell 2.2% to $34.5 billion.
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