U.As we speak – 2024 has already confirmed to be a wild journey for traders. In what was possible essentially the most thrilling monetary product launch in historical past, the SEC permitted 10 spot Bitcoin ETF merchandise for buying and selling in U.S. marketplaces.
In response, BTC costs rose to a brand new multi-year excessive, reaching $49,102. The market then fell 18% over the weekend, reaching contemporary year-to-date lows of $40,236.
As with every essential occasion, holders of Bitcoins take pleasure in debating whether or not it was priced in or not.
On this regard, Julio Moreno, the pinnacle of analysis at CryptoQuant, debunks the broadly circulated narrative that the Bitcoin value drop was attributable to Grayscale’s GBTC promoting Bitcoin.
Earlier than being transformed to an ETF from a belief, Grayscale Bitcoin Belief (GBTC) was one of many solely choices for inventory merchants in the US to acquire publicity to Bitcoin value swings with out having to buy the precise cryptocurrency.
Whereas GBTC has seen exceptional outflows after its uplisting into an ETF, a piece of those have been from traders shifting to lower-fee ETFs.
Moreno highlighted that, whereas GBTC offered roughly 60,000 Bitcoins, different Bitcoin ETFs web bought roughly 72,000 Bitcoins, thus offsetting the gross sales of BTC from Grayscale’s GBTC.
He attributes the volatility in Bitcoin’s value to promoting by Bitcoin holders (short-term merchants and whales) who took income following final yr’s surge, noting that the ETF approval may simply be the “sell-the-news” occasion.
What on-chain information says
In keeping with on-chain analytics agency Glassnode, Bitcoin’s value drop might need been pushed by each derivatives leverage and spot revenue taking.
Nevertheless, a number of metrics in each the on-chain and derivatives domains counsel {that a} non-trivial portion of Bitcoin traders did deal with the ETF approval as a sell-the-news occasion.
Whereas there are different key driving elements behind the interim volatility, each futures and choices markets have seen a significant uptick in open curiosity (OI) since mid-October, in accordance with Glassnode.
Open curiosity in each markets stays round multi-year highs, exhibiting that leverage is rising and changing into a extra dominant drive in markets.
On the time of writing, BTC was up 0.58% within the final 24 hours to $41,543, per CoinMarketCap information.
This text was initially printed on U.As we speak
