There was a strong rally in the BTC balance on the Binance exchange. Over the past week, the king coin posted gains of 7.34%, though it struggled to break above $30,000.
BTC activity exploded from the start of 2023 when it rebounded from the depths of the 2022 bear market. According to the Head of Research at @intotheblock, Lucas Outumuro, the number of daily transactions on the network was about to reach its highest level since the bull market. December 2017. A major factor driving this exponential growth was the increasing activity around BTC Ordinals.
On April 28, Outumuro tweeted the following:
“The number of daily Bitcoin transactions is on track to reach its highest level since December 2017. Daily BTC transactions have nearly doubled since the launch of Bitcoin Ordinals in January 2023.”
At the moment, BTC was trading at $29,342, with a marginal 24-hour drop of 0.28% per CoinMarketCap. Over the past week, the king coin posted gains of 7.34%, though it struggled to break above $30,000.
Growing Interest in the Cryptomarket
Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode revealed a sharp increase in the BTC balance on the Binance exchange over the past month. This behavior implied a growing appetite for risk-based assets in the market.
The spate of bank collapses in March led investors to put their funds into the crypto market and view BTC as a hedge against traditional finance. The king coin shot up 21% during March, hitting the $28,000 mark for the first time since June 2022.
As another high-profile bank, First Republic Bank faces a downturn, the crypto market in general and BTC, in particular, are hoping to attract disgruntled investors from traditional markets.
Additionally, it seems that whales are more attracted to BTC. As BTC prices reached $30,000, the whales began to exit their positions, leaving retail investors in the dust. However, it was recently observed that whales have started to show interest in accumulating BTC once again.
According to data provided by Santiment, during the slight price dip and swing, addresses holding between 100 and 10,000 BTC added a total of 64,094 coins to their stack since April 11.
The interest of whales and retail investors in BTC could cause a temporary increase in prices. However, selling pressure on miners could hamper their growth.
BTC Exchange Supply
The increase in the sustained balance on Binance was not a worrisome sign yet, as there was a noticeable divergence between the supply of BTC on and off exchanges. This indicated that investors preferred to save their coins rather than throw them away.
The exchange whale index is the relative size of the top 10 inbound transactions to total inflows, according to CryptoQuant. During the bull market, it normally stays below 85%. At the time, 39% of the total inflows were coming from large addresses, reflecting bullish sentiment for BTC.
In regards to BTC in the derivatives market, speculative interest for BTC surged as open interest (OI) for BTC futures rose 8% to $11.81 billion over the past two days. However, funding rates on some exchanges turned negative, implying increasing dominance for bearish leveraged traders.
By Audy Castaneda
