The world’s largest digital currency by market capitalization Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) crossed the psychologically important level of $20,000 Tuesday after concluding its longest stretch below that level since the token first crossed it in late 2020.
Bitcoin was trading up by around 4% to $20,185 on Tuesday.
For over three weeks, the token has traded below $20,000, deviating from the coin's usual volatility.
What Happened: Other digital assets are also moving higher, with Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) rising 10% to $1,476, its highest price this month.
Alt-coins such as Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) have also advanced substantially.
Despite the advances, Bitcoin remains in a multimonth price decline as central banks raise interest rates in an attempt to contain increasing inflation.
Bitcoin is still down about 67% from the all-time high seen in November 2021.
The Market Backdrop: Cryptocurrencies gained with U.S. markets on Tuesday as investors considered risks to global growth and conflicting corporate news.
New economic statistics show a drop in consumer confidence in the United States, indicating that purchasers may reduce spending amid recessionary worries and aggressive interest rate increases.
Bitcoin's high connection to risk assets such as tech stocks has shattered expectations that it could be used as an inflation hedge.
For much of the year, the coin has moved in pace with U.S. markets.
On Tuesday, the 60-day correlation coefficient between Bitcoin and S&P 500 contracts was about 0.63, with a coefficient of 1 indicating that the assets are moving in lockstep, whereas a value of -1 indicates that they are going in opposing directions.
Meanwhile, according to a well-recognized quant analyst, amid uncertain market conditions, two large Bitcoin stakeholders are heavily accumulating Bitcoin at lower levels.
Whales Accumulating Bitcoin: Ki Young Ju, the CEO of analytics business Crypto Quant, informed his 308,400 Twitter followers that wealthy investors are actively buying Bitcoin on the leading digital asset exchange Binance.
“Whales are accumulating BTC in Binance. Since Bitcoin price hit the $20,000 level, Binance’s spot trading volume dominance skyrocketed, and it’s now 84%. The second biggest is Coinbase, 9%. Not sure whether these whales are institutions using prime brokers or crypto OGs (original gangsters) for now,” he stated.
He added that whales have taken over the Bitcoin futures market.
“BTC futures traders are now mostly whales. The average amount of Bitcoin deposits to derivative exchanges from other exchanges is relatively big, a five-year high,” he stated.
Next: 'Dear, Government: No More Bitcoin!' Crypto Was A Failure In This Nation, Survey Says
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