Bitcoin Steady at $52K as Investors Speculate on New All-Time High

The Bitcoin price has been holding steady, trading for $52,246.31 at the time of writing—a 0.3% drop from the same time yesterday. But the weekly gains Bitcoin has made are nothing to sniff at.

Bitcoin has posted a 12% gain since this time last week and seen its average weekly trading volume rebound in a big way. So far this year (and unsurprisingly) BTC saw $36.4 billion average volume—its highest since the start of the year—the same week that 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading.

In the weeks after, when traders were unloading billions worth of GBTC shares in a sell-the-news wave, trading volumes dipped. But even before this current week has ended, CoinGecko data shows that average trading volume for the week could again top $30 billion for the first time since Bitcoin ETFs got their start.

Trader optimism is showing up in other ways, too.

In Bitcoin derivatives markets, call options (contracts used to bet that Bitcoin’s price will increase) have far outnumbered puts (contracts used to bet it will go down). At the time of writing, CoinGlass data shows 65% of the options open interest in calls, although in the past 24 hours the split has been an even split.

Looking ahead, traders seem to think it’s likely Bitcoin has more room to grow in the coming months. Of the $4.4 billion worth of notional value in contracts expiring on March 29, there’s $2.8 billion call options, according to CoinGlass. It’s also worth nothing that there’s a growing number of traders betting that BTC could see prices between $60,000 and $75,000 before the end of next month.

Meanwhile, there’s still lots of action on those U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. Vetle Lunde, a K33 Research senior analyst, noted on Twitter that the funds saw 100,000 BTC in flows yesterday.

Net U.S. spot ETF flow surpassed 100,000 BTC yesterday!

That equals two-thirds of the annualized reduction in BTC issuance after the upcoming halving. pic.twitter.com/lQH8LssJwz

— Vetle Lunde (@VetleLunde) February 16, 2024

The sustained interest from Wall Street has been encouraging for traders. But that means there’s been stiff competition among the issuers. Yesterday VanEck announced that it was cutting fees on its HODL spot Bitcoin ETF to 0.20%—just under the 0.25% now being charged by the iShares Bitcoin Trust—to better compete with its peers.

Earlier this week, Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini co-founder, reasoned that the growing amount of BTC that’s being held by ETF custodians and the reduced rate at which new coins will be issued after the Bitcoin halving could be very bullish.

IntotheBlock data shows that BTC volatility has calmed down slightly over the past couple days. That’s due, in part, to the growing liquidity that’s on exchanges. The easier it is for traders to buy and sell large amounts of Bitcoin without causing the price to fluctuate, the less volatile an asset it will become. Even so, exchange outflows have slightly outpaced inflows over the past week, according to the blockchain analytics firm.

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