The price of Bitcoin continued to trade above the $51,000 level after a week-long upward trend, starting Tuesday’s transactions at $51,957.
This increase has stimulated whale activity in various events, supporting the strength of Bitcoin prices.
BlackRock increased its Bitcoin holdings to over $6 billion during the past week, and transactions for major portfolios on instant Bitcoin trading platforms for investors owning more than 1,000 Bitcoin reached $10 billion in the last five weeks, justifying the recent significant surge.
With Bitcoin reaching over $52,000 in the past five days, there has been a significant increase in whale transactions, reaching the highest level since June 2022. However, Bitcoin’s price slightly declined last Saturday after a week-long rise. If the price continues above $51,000, it could potentially rise to $55,000 and even surpass its previous all-time high of $69,004.
Especially as the cryptocurrency market cap reached $1.99 trillion, according to Coin MarketCap estimates, with a 10% increase in just one week. I believe that the upward momentum is still clear and strong. Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has risen by 1.4%, surpassing Ethereum (+4.4%) and Solana (+3.5%). Both BNB (-0.6%) and XRP (+0.9%) were unable to keep up with the current market gains.
Coinbase reported a net profit of $273 million in the fourth quarter, with the annual figure reaching $95 million out of total revenues of $3.1 billion. Coinbase has acted as a custodian for almost all instant Bitcoin trading investment funds, receiving approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in January of the previous year.
In my opinion, the current liquidity in the markets, along with the pre-market pricing for the approval of instant Ethereum trading funds, supports the strength of the current market rise in the medium term, similar to what happened before the approval of Bitcoin investment funds.
Especially after investment company VanEck proposed launching an instant Ethereum-ETF to the Securities and Exchange Commission, joining Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, BlackRock, and Invesco in seeking approval for exchange-traded products based on Ethereum. I believe that regulatory approval for these products will be granted next May.
All of this is happening approximately 60 days before the expected Bitcoin halving event, which could have a different impact this time, especially with estimates suggesting that around 15-20% of the total computing power of the Bitcoin network will become unprofitable after the halving in April. This is based on calculations with a BTC price of $45,000 and a transaction fee of 15%. Caution is advised when buying Bitcoin in the short term.
In my view, the attractiveness of USDT (Tether) compared to other stablecoins is likely to diminish, as future regulations in the United States will require greater transparency and compliance with new KYC/AML standards. Stablecoin regulations will be coordinated globally through the Financial Stability Board within the G20. The popularity of stablecoins linked to the US dollar may help maintain the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.
