Traders Caught Off Guard as Bitcoin Rebounds to $70,000 – Unchained

A collection of whale and shark wallets acquired 51,959 BTC on a single day, blockchain analysts noted as bitcoin’s price rebounded to $71,000 last on March 25.

The price of bitcoin reclaimed the $71,000 mark late on Monday, before settling at around $70,400 at press time, marking a gain of 5.5% over the last 24 hours, as per data from CoinMarketCap.

The sudden price action caught traders off guard, noted on-chain analytics firm Santiment, attributing the rebound to a big day of accumulation from large bitcoin stakeholders.

🐳📈 #Bitcoin has just caught traders off guard (as usual) with a huge rebound ascension to $70K. Why? Key #Bitcoin stakeholders had one of their single largest accumulation days in years.

🔼51,959 collective #Bitcoin were accumulated by wallets that hold between 10-10K $BTC on… pic.twitter.com/vT4fRUVYs7

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) March 25, 2024

According to Santiment’s data, wallets that hold between 10 and 10,000 BTC accumulated 51,959 BTC on Sunday alone, which amounts to 0.263% of the circulating supply available for bitcoin. 

The analysts noted that it wouldn’t be uncommon for these wallets to continue growing their bitcoin holdings in the weeks leading up to the bitcoin halving on April 19, and as a result, grow the market capitalization of not just bitcoin, but also the wider crypto market.

“Ideally, this continued accumulation would not be coming entirely at the expense of whale and shark USDT and USDC holdings. Their dry powder as it is often referenced, is a key component to continuously have the ability to swap for more cryptocurrency at any given time,” they said.

On-chain analytics firm Glassnode also noted that a pre-halving retracement was something to be expected, comparing investor behaviour to the 2016-2017 bull cycle.

In this week’s Glassnode Clips, we analyze recent bull market corrections, comparing them to the 2016-2017 cycle and highlighting the impact of ETFs. We also explore how events like the halving influence investor behavior.

Discover more below 👇 pic.twitter.com/80XYNEZJhR

— glassnode (@glassnode) March 23, 2024

Meanwhile, crypto data firm Kaiko pointed out in their most recent research report that volatility is back in the market in a big way, referencing the bitcoin flash crash on BitMEX last week. 

“The low liquidity and fragmentation of the cryptocurrency market, as well as potential manipulation attempts, are contributing factors to these flash crashes, which are unlike anything seen in traditional markets,” said Kaiko analysts.