As U.S. banking stocks grappled with the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse, Bitcoin surged to a nine-month high.
Around 9:00 am ET on Tuesday, Bitcoin rallied to $26,514 – a level last seen in June 2022. A major part of this rally followed the release of U.S. inflation data for February, which were largely in line with analyst estimates.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) slowed to 6% on a year-over-year basis, down from 6.4% in January.
Good night banking system, hello #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/0SF2JyEmwe
— Stockmoney Lizards (@StockmoneyL) March 13, 2023
As of Wednesday morning, the price had dropped back below $25,000.
Despite struggling to sustain momentum above $20,000 over the last few months, Bitcoin rallied an impressive 30% after the bank run on SVB. In fact, the recent rally seems even more unprecedented in the wider context of what unfolded over the weekend.
On Sunday, regulators announced that they would be shutting down Signature Bank, following a $10 billion run on deposits it witnessed on account of the panic brought on by SVB. Signature board member Barney Frank described the regulators’ decision as one that was motivated by a desire to “send a very strong anti-crypto message.”
Market participants believed that the Signature closure would adversely impact crypto, seeing as it was one of the largest banks still servicing the industry. Bitcoin’s recent price action, however, tells a very different story.
Watching Bitcoin absolutely send during a banking crisis after regulators tried to cut off the industry has to be one of the most satisfying moments ever
— Will (@WClementeIII) March 14, 2023
While the US banking system was seizing up in response to bank runs threatening regional banks, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto networks didn’t skip a beat. Instability in the banking system threatened stablecoins, the on-ramps to DeFi, in stark contrast to regulator rhetoric https://t.co/r5xwC96Pdj
— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) March 15, 2023
The current state of Bitcoin derivatives markets also paints an optimistic picture. At press time, the BTC margin lending ratio on OKX was above 35, implying more traders are long than short.
On March 13, the nominal value of Bitcoin options daily trading volume surged to $2.5 billion – the second highest in history. Open interest on Derebit, the largest Bitcoin derivatives exchange, also surged to a record high with 358,424 contracts valued at $8.9 billion at the time of writing.
