Market participants appear more confident that an ‘Uptober’ is on the cards for bitcoin as the leading digital asset breached a crucial level of resistance on Monday.
Bitcoin surged 7% to an intra-day high of $66,482, before settling at around $65,400, marking a positive start to the third week of the month.
Trading volume for the leading digital asset surged 95% over the last 24 hours to $42 billion — more than double ether’s trading volume over the same period.
Onchain data platform CryptoQuant noted that taker buyers outpaced taker sellers by $1.1 billion in net purchases.
The price action expectedly triggered millions of dollars worth of liquidations, this time impacting those betting on a lower bitcoin price. Data from CoinGlass shows that $189 million was liquidated in the last day, of which $56 million came from traders shorting bitcoin.
It was a positive day for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. as well, which clocked a cumulative $556 million in inflows. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) led the pack with $239 million in inflows, followed by the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) which recorded $100 million in inflows, as per data from SoSoValue.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has been the most successful bitcoin ETF by a large margin. The ETF has amassed $21.7 billion in net inflows since its launch.
When asked what BlackRock’s ambitions in digital assets were going forward, and which presidential candidate would be most friendly to the industry, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he was not sure if either candidate would make a difference.
“I do believe the utilization of assets are going to become more and more of a reality worldwide. Conversations we’re having with institutions worldwide, conversations about how should they think about digital assets, what type of asset allocation there should be. I mean, we believe Bitcoin is an asset class in itself,” said Fink.
“It is an alternative to other commodities like gold, and so I think the application of this form of investment will it be expanded to the role of the cerium as a blockchain can grow dramatically.”