Bitcoin
BTC
The bitcoin price, down around 70% from its all-time high, has been battling to hold above $20,000 per bitcoin as the market grapples with a savage crypto winter—though there’s still some positive news emerging.
Now, one crypto exchange chief executive has said he’s seeing “massive crypto interest” from institutional clients (after a BlackRock game-changer this month) while a closely-watched bullish bitcoin trading signal has flashed this week.
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Bitcoin has dropped sharply this week but bullish investors remain confident the bitcoin price will … [+]
“Many institutional companies are looking to make their first move into crypto—there is massive crypto interest from our institutional clients,” Bitstamp chief executive Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux said during an interview with Business2Community this week.
Earlier this month, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $10 trillion in assets under managment, launched a spot bitcoin private trust, opening up the bitcoin and crypto market its U.S. institutional clients. However, the bitcoin price has continued to sink since then, struggling to regain last year’s momentum in the face of the Federal Reserve’s battle to rein in inflation with interest rate hikes and monetary tightening.
“Generally, on how long the crypto winter will last, it is a bit too early to say when and how,” Graftieaux said. “But what I feel personally is that we are in a more positive trend now compared to the last couple of months, even though the climate is still very uncertain. In the coming quarters we will probably see more positive indicators—maybe not of a bull run but of some positive evolution on the markets.”
Meanwhile, recent technical signals that show an uptick in bitcoin’s mining hash rate—used to calculate the computational power being used to create new bitcoin and secure the network after miners shut off their machines following bitcoin’s price crash earlier this year.
“Historically, these have been great times to allocate into bitcoin, with incredible returns,” Charles Edwards, founder of quantitative crypto fund Capriole Investments, told CNBC.
Edwards’ so-called hash ribbon data has recently showed bitcoin’s hash rate 30-day moving average has crossed back above the 60-day moving average at the same time as the 10-day moving average price of bitcoin going above the 20-day moving average price.
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The bitcoin price crashed this week after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell signalled the Fed will … [+]
Despite bitcoin’s mining hash rate rising over the last week, the bitcoin price has fallen in the aftermath of a speech by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Friday in which he warned of “pain” ahead as the Fed fights to bring down inflation from a 40-year high.
“Fed chair Jerome Powell’s speech … was perhaps slightly hawkish in that he mentioned that a “restrictive policy” would be required for some time and spoke against “prematurely” loosening policy,” Joe DiPasquale, the chief executive of hedge fund BitBull Capital, wrote in an emailed note. “However, given this, we remain cautious of any upward move and maintain our stance of watching market reactions at key levels and looking to accumulate around the $20,000—$18,000 range to start.”
