KEY POINTS
- Bitcoin opened at around $61K then closed at over $66K on Wednesday
- The cryptocurrency has been sticking to $60K and $61K in the past days
- The digital currency last hit $66,000 on April 23, three days after the halving
Bitcoin, the world's most popular digital asset, hit $66,000 on Wednesday as BTC whales moved massive amounts of Bitcoins from the Coinbase exchange.
The first Bitcoin whale moved 7,999 BTC worth over $494.1 million at the time of the transfer from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to an unknown wallet Wednesday, according to Whale Alert, which tracks and reports the movements of some of the biggest crypto holders in the digital assets realm.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 7,999 #BTC (494,138,045 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown new wallethttps://t.co/Z0gAgJkYOv
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 15, 2024
Soon after, another whale transferred the same number of Bitcoins from the same exchange to a new unknown wallet. The sender's wallet address and recipient address are different from the earlier transaction, as per on-chain data. Although having the same amounts, the transactions also had different hashes.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 7,999 #BTC (494,138,045 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown new wallethttps://t.co/VVnMEFFAHy
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 15, 2024
Late on Wednesday, another whale moved 920 BTC worth over $60.8 million from the exchange to an unknown digital address, bringing the collective transfers of Bitcoins from three large BTC holders to over $1 billion in a span of 24 hours.
🚨 🚨 🚨 920 #BTC (60,879,404 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown wallethttps://t.co/Qcssm4lR5j
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 15, 2024
While the reasons for such transfers is never made known by the whales themselves, some analysts and crypto observers suggested that such movements could be large crypto holders "buying the dip," which means investors are snapping up as many tokens as they can while prices are down.
The transfers were made on the day Bitcoin shot up to $66,000 after having struggled to break the $62,000-mark for a couple of days. Notably, the world's first decentralized crypto added a whopping $5,000 on Wednesday as it opened at around $61,500 and closed at around $66,200.
The last time Bitcoin passed $66,000 was on April 23, three days after the halving event that split BTC mining rewards in half, effectively reducing the release of new Bitcoins into the hungry market.
Crypto watchers have since reacted to the $5,000 price pump. "Bitcoin broke out of the falling wedge pattern, retested, consolidated, and bounced," user @kcryptowolf said. He also predicted that the "next resistance area" for the digital asset is $67,500. Once the said level is broken, the coin should well move toward a $70,000 target, he said.
Another user noted how Bitcoin's recent price action signals it has "squashed the bearish narrative" and is poised to reach another barrier before it moves up further.
Bitcoin, which has been on a wild ride in the past few weeks due to various economic trends, lodged its new all-time high of $73,000 in mid-March. It remains to be seen when the digital coin will make another significant rally following its three-month run on the heels of the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) in January.
