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Bitcoin Long Positions Surge On Bitfinex: Whales Add 4,230 BTC, Signaling Potential Price Reversal

In a surprising turn of events, the approval of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has not yielded the anticipated immediate upside impact on the Bitcoin price. 

Contrary to expectations within the crypto community, BTC has experienced a sharp drop of over 16% since the ETF approval on Wednesday, January 11, dipping below the key $40,000 level. The failure of BTC bulls to hold the support level has led to a testing phase at the $38,000 level, accompanied by a 4.5% price drop within the past 24 hours.

Bitfinex Whales Buck The Trend

Amidst the market volatility, according to Datamish, Bitfinex whales have accumulated Bitcoin long positions since November 2023. This accumulation of approximately 4,230 BTC since January 17 marks the first sustained increase in Bitfinex BTC long positions following a sharp decline in November last year. 

Bitcoin

However, the recent downturn in the BTC price can be partly attributed to increased selling pressure from miners and asset manager Grayscale. Grayscale has notably increased its BTC sell-off since the ETF trading commenced. 

Transferring a significant amount of BTC from the Grayscale Trust address to Coinbase, totaling 69,994 BTC ($2.9 billion), has influenced the market dynamics. 

Additionally, reports indicate substantial sell-offs of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust GBTC shares, including a notable sale of 22 million GBTC shares by the FTX estate, worth nearly $1 billion. 

Bitcoin Liquidation Zones Wiped Off

The impact of Grayscale’s sell-off is evident in CoinGlass’ liquidation heatmap, which shows notable liquidation zones being wiped off in the 1-week chart. 

While Grayscale’s BTC dump has contributed to the price drop, the increased accumulation of BTC long positions on Bitfinex indicates a potential change in sentiment. A price reversal could occur if the $38,000 support line holds, pushing BTC back above $40,000.

Bitcoin

Furthermore, excluding Grayscale, institutional investors and asset managers involved in the ETF market have collectively acquired over 86,320 BTC at an average price of $42,000, representing a substantial $3.63 billion investment. 

Market experts such as Ali Martinez suggest that these institutions are likely to adopt a strategic, long-term view rather than engage in peak purchases. This level of institutional investment underscores the growing recognition of Bitcoin as a legitimate asset class and signifies confidence in its long-term growth potential.

Bitcoin

Currently, the Bitcoin price is at $38,800, reflecting a substantial year-to-date decline of over 12% and a 9.7% drop in the past seven days. The duration and extent of the selling pressure caused by Grayscale’s BTC dump remain uncertain, leaving the question of how much further the BTC price may decline.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

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The SEC Goes Back to Court

Last summer, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance, alleging they listed and traded unregistered securities in the form of various cryptocurrencies. This week, the regulator’s legal teams faced the exchanges in court as the companies argued the SEC did not make the case that those cryptos are securities.

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Bloodbath For Bitcoin: Grayscale’s $529 Million BTC Move To Coinbase Pushes Price Below $41,000

Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency in the market, has experienced a sharp drop below the $41,000 mark as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Bitcoin went live on January 12. 

The subsequent profit-taking, selling pressure, and outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) played a significant role in the downward trend.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Transfers To Coinbase Intensify

On Tuesday, NewsBTC reported that six days ago, Grayscale initiated the first batch of BTC outflows from their holdings to a Coinbase, totaling 4,000 BTC (approximately $183 million) over six days. 

However, the asset manager resumed outflows from the Trust to the exchange on Tuesday, sending an additional 11,700 BTC (equivalent to $491.4 million) to Coinbase. 

Furthermore, on Friday, data from Arkham Intelligence revealed that 12,865 BTC ($529 million) were transferred from the Grayscale Trust address to Coinbase Prime. 

Bitcoin

In total, the Grayscale Trust address has transferred 54,343 BTC ($2.313 billion) to Coinbase Prime during the opening hours of the US stock market over five consecutive trading days since January 12, which has undoubtedly contributed to the downtrend in Bitcoin’s price.

Selling Frenzy Among BTC Miners

In addition to Grayscale’s selling spree, there has been increased selling activity by Bitcoin miners ahead of the upcoming Bitcoin halving. 

Crypto analyst Ali Martinez highlights that on-chain data from CryptoQuant indicates a substantial increase in selling activity by BTC miners. In the past 24 hours, miners offloaded nearly 10,600 BTC, with a value of approximately $455.8 million.

The persistent selling pressure has caused BTC to trade at $40,900, reflecting a slight 0.2% decrease over the past 24 hours. 

Bitcoin

The downtrend has been evident across various time frames, with declines of 5%, 6%, and 7% over the seven, fourteen, and thirty-day periods, respectively. However, despite these recent setbacks, Bitcoin remains remarkably positive year-to-date, with an impressive 98% gain.

Overall, the combined impact of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF outflows and increased selling activity by miners has intensified the downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price, breaching the critical support level of $41,000. 

The focus now turns to how Bitcoin bulls will defend the crucial $40,000 support level, which stands as the last line of defense before a potential dip toward the $37,700 mark.

Bitcoin

Should this support level fail to hold, the Bitcoin market could witness further price declines, potentially pushing the price down to the $35,800 mark. However, with the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April, bullish investors are hopeful that this event will catalyze a significant bull run.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com

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Bitcoin Price In Danger? This Terrible Story Could Happen Again

The Bitcoin price has been moving steadily at its current but failed to meet general expectations. Following the approval of the spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), market participants were expecting potential scenarios.

In these potential scenarios, Bitcoin pushed through critical resistance at $48,000 and continued making new highs, or the cryptocurrency retraced to $30,000. As usual, the market has avoided pleasing the crowd as BTC trades at $42,000.

bitcoin price btc btucsdt

Bitcoin Price Ready To Dip?

The spot BTC ETFs have been influencing the market; the capital flows from these financial products have been used to suppress the cryptocurrency. A pseudonym analyst has been keeping track of crypto exchange Coinbase to connect the flows with the Bitcoin price action.

Since its initial launch on January 11, the BTC flows into Coinbase have increased. This trading venue is key due to its role as Custodian in most spot Bitcoin ETFs filed with the US SEC.

Thus, asset managers who want to buy or sell BTC go to Coinbase. The exchange sees fluctuations in its Bitcoin price in the spot market compared to other exchanges.

As the trading volume on Coinbase has increased since the spot Bitcoin ETFs launch, the platform records some of its highest activity. In the meantime, the Bitcoin price trends sideways. The pseudonym analyst stated:

(…) supply is coming from somewhere, obviously gbtc and maybe some others, like cme futures, anyways, whats most important is coinbase is still trading discount compared to other spot venues and thats very weak, unless you’re managing billions $, you can probably wait to fomo once coinbase is dragging market up instead of dripping sells.

Another crypto analyst echoed these words; the chart below shows that the Coinbase Premium Gap signals strong selling pressure. If history repeats, the metric hints at a fierce crash for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin price BTC BTCUSDT

In that sense, the analyst recommends “patience” while Bitcoin moves sideways and the Coinbase Premium Gap signals a potential dip into support.

Bitcoin ETFs Breaking Record

A report from Reuters indicates that the spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted almost $2 billion in their first few days of trading. BlackRock and Fidelity led these capital inflows and will maintain them depending on their fee structure, CEO of CF Benchmarks Sui Chung claims, while adding:

Those that charge the lower management fees will unsurprisingly make themselves more appealing compared to their peers. Brand recognition is another core aspect.

However, several experts have questioned these flows, which disputed the numbers. Three days after the ETFs launched, NewsBTC reported $800 million in new inflows based on a report by Eric Balchunas, ETF expert for Bloomberg Intelligence.

Cover image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview

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Grayscale Transfers Almost 12,000 BTC To Coinbase, Bitcoin Price Reacts

In a significant development that could potentially impact the Bitcoin price, Arkham Intelligence data reveals that Grayscale, the manager and owner of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), has been sending a significant amount of Bitcoin to Coinbase since the launch of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on January 12.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Initiates Substantial BTC Outflow

According to the data, four days ago, Grayscale initiated the first batch of BTC outflows from their holdings to the US-based exchange in four separate batches, totaling 4,000 BTC, which amounted to approximately $183 million. However, the asset manager resumed outflows from the Trust to the exchange on Tuesday.

Bitcoin price

In a recent update, approximately three hours ago, the asset manager sent an additional 11,700 BTC to Coinbase, amounting to $491.4 million. This additional selling pressure could push the Bitcoin price to test lower support levels.

Furthermore, Bloomberg reports that investors have withdrawn over half a billion dollars from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust during the initial days of trading as an ETF. 

According to Bloomberg’s data, outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust reached approximately $579 million, while the other nine spot Bitcoin ETFs witnessed inflows totaling nearly $819 million.

Investors Shift Capital To ‘Lower-Cost’ Spot Bitcoin ETFs

James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, noted that investors may be profit-taking following the ETF conversion. The flow data provides valuable insights into the ETF’s performance following SEC approval. 

Although over $2.3 billion of GBTC shares were traded on its first day, the outflows indicate that a portion of that volume was due to selling. Seyffart anticipates that a significant amount of capital will enter other Bitcoin exposures.

The outflows from Grayscale’s ETF were somewhat expected. Bloomberg Intelligence had previously projected that the fund would experience outflows of over $1 billion in the coming weeks. 

Some of this outflow can be attributed to investors shifting towards more cost-effective spot Bitcoin ETFs. With an expense ratio of 1.5%, GBTC is the most expensive US ETF directly investing in Bitcoin. In contrast, the VanEck Bitcoin Trust, the second-most expensive fund, charges 0.25%.

On the other hand, other spot Bitcoin ETFs have witnessed net inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT attracted nearly $500 million in the first two days of trading, while Fidelity’s FBTC received approximately $421 million. 

According to Bloomberg, these inflows suggest strong demand for Bitcoin exposure in physically backed ETFs, even beyond potential seed funding from the fund issuers.

Bitcoin Price Finds Support At $42,000

Currently, the Bitcoin price remains unaffected by the news of Grayscale’s transfers to Coinbase. The leading cryptocurrency is trading at $43,100, showing a slight increase of 0.8% over the past 24 hours.

However, since the commencement of ETF trading, it is important to note that the Bitcoin price has experienced a significant retracement, declining by 8%. This decline can be attributed to profit-taking and selling pressure, with Grayscale’s involvement being noteworthy.

In the event of a further drop in the Bitcoin price, a significant support level has been established at $42,000. If this level is breached, the next key level for Bitcoin bulls to watch is $41,350, followed by a potential dip below $40,000.

The market is eagerly observing whether Grayscale and its BTC selloff will continue and how this will impact the Bitcoin price leading up to the scheduled halving event in April, which many consider to be the main catalyst for the year.

Bitcoin price

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

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Crypto Community Raises Alarm Over Coinbase’s Dominance Of Bitcoin Held In Spot ETFs

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is presently serving as the custodian of the majority of the Spot Bitcoin ETFs managed by various asset management companies in the industry. This notable concentration is raising worries in the crypto community about significant centralization and potential risks associated with the custodianship. 

Coinbase Dominate ETFs As Major Custodian

Coinbase’s significant role in the advancement of Spot Bitcoin ETFs has become a target of scrutiny in the crypto community. The American crypto exchange is currently the custodian of 9 out of 11 Spot Bitcoin ETF companies, including BlackRock, Grayscale, Ark/21 Shares, Bitwise, WisdomTree, Invesco/Galaxy, Valkyrie, GlobalX, and Franklin Templeton. 

Notably, only Fidelity and VanEck have opted for alternative custodianship approaches. Fidelity is employing a self-custody program for its Spot Bitcoin ETF, while VanEck has selected Gemini, a crypto exchange, as the custodian for its Spot BTC ETF. 

The prominent role of Coinbase as the major custodian for Spot BTC ETFs has raised serious questions and concerns in the crypto community. Specifically, Gabor Gurbacs, Director of Digital Assets Strategy at VanEck, has deemed Coinbase’s concentrated level of custodianship to be a “double-edged sword.” 

Gurbacs stated that Coinbase would bear substantial responsibility as the primary custodian for Spot Bitcoin ETFs and would reap significant benefits from it. However, he also hinted at potential counterparty risks associated with concentrating assets within a single entity. 

Similarly, a crypto analyst on X (formerly Twitter) highlighted the potential for increased scrutiny from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Coinbase, given its prominent position in the Spot Bitcoin ETF market. The crypto exchange is presently in a legal battle with the SEC, and many crypto enthusiasts believe that Coinbase’s regulatory challenges may pose a threat to the success of Spot BTC ETFs. 

Bitcoin price chart from Tradingview.com

Coinbase CFO Bullish On Bitcoin ETFs

The Chief Financial Officer of Coinbase, Alesia Haas appeared recently in an interview on Bloomberg TV, discussing the effects of Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the crypto market. 

When asked if the momentum of Spot Bitcoin ETFs would become a “game-changer” in the future, Haas responded confidently with a resounding “absolutely.”

The Coinbase CFO declared that the SEC’s approval of Spot Bitcoin ETFs was an important day for crypto, as it positions Bitcoin into a much broader investable asset class. She also revealed that the deployment of Spot Bitcoin ETFs would allow investors to have greater access to BTC products, extending its reach to billions of people around the globe and increasing the amount of inflows into ETFs. 

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Coinbase Expands To Africa, This Partnership Will Make It Happen

On January 11, crypto exchange Coinbase unveiled its partnership with Yellow Card, the largest and first licensed Stablecoin on/off ramp on the African continent, to expand the access of their products to emerging economies across the African continent.

Expansion To Emerging Economies

Coinbase will expand access to its products through this new partnership with Yellow Card, starting with 20 African countries. They will provide millions of African users access to USD Coin (USDC) on the Coinbase Wallet and the Yellow Card app.

Both partners expect to “increase economic freedom” in many of these countries, whose economies have suffered from high inflation and remittance dependency and the lack of a modern financial system vastly sought by the younger generations. As they state in their press release:

Young people are more likely to recognize the benefits of crypto: more than seven in 10 crypto owners globally (72%) are under age 34.

Their Plan To Make The Global Financial System “More Accesible”

To achieve opening access to a more modern and global financial system, they will facilitate access to USDC on Base for cheaper fees and faster transactions than traditional transfers starting in February 2024.

In the Coinbase Wallet, users will be able to purchase USDC directly from their Wallet app, as well as sending USDC without any fee to messaging and social media apps, as they noted:

Coinbase Wallet users will be able to easily send USDC without fees on any platform where they can share a link — including messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage and Telegram, and through popular social media apps and email.

Users of the Yellow Card’s platform can purchase USDC on Base and transfer through the L2 blockchain, benefiting from cheaper fees and easy access to the stablecoin, too.

Chris Maurice, Co-Founder and CEO of Yellow Card, expressed his excitement in an X (formerly known as Twitter) post. Maurice is optimistic about the future of the partnership and the solutions it might bring to African people and businesses.

The partnership aims to protect users’ savings across the African continent from “unstable currencies” and economic volatility due to the high inflation rates of up to 18.5%.

They will offer lower remittance fees, with the maximum fee being 2%. As well as offering access to the global financial system to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by allowing merchants to set up a Wallet in less than a minute and broadening their growth.

In summary, the Coinbase and Yellow Card partnership will expand solutions for people and businesses in 20 African countries by making the global financial system more accessible.

Coinbase COIN COINUSD

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Bitcoin Erases $49,000 ETF Rally As Coinbase Users Take To Selling

Bitcoin had earlier shown a sharp rally toward the $49,000 mark, but the asset was quick to retrace the entire surge as the Coinbase Premium turned negative.

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap Plunged Into Negative During Past Day

As pointed out by CryptoQuant Netherlands community manager Maartunn in a post on X, the Coinbase Premium Gap has now turned notably negative after being mostly positive for the last few days.

The “Coinbase Premium Gap” refers to the difference between the Bitcoin prices listed on the cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase (USD pair) and Binance (USDT pair).

This indicator’s value basically provides hints about how the buying or selling behaviors on these two largest platforms in the sector differ from each other right now.

When the metric has a positive value, it means that the price listed on Coinbase is higher than on Binance currently. Such a trend implies the former platform’s users are participating in a higher amount of buying (or lower amount of selling) than the Binance users.

On the other hand, the indicator being positive suggests that Binance might be observing a higher degree of buying pressure at the moment as the price listed on the exchange is greater.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap since the start of the year:

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap has observed a sharp plunge down into the negative territory during the past day or so. Before this plummet, the indicator had been mostly at positive values since the start of the year.

There were a few dips into the red zone earlier as well, but the indicator only attained minor negative values during these drops. This time, though, the premium is down to significantly negative levels.

The price surges this year were being driven by the buyers on Coinbase, as the price rose every time the premium did as well. Coinbase is popularly known to be used by US institutional investors, so the green premium suggested that these large entities were buying, most likely in anticipation of the ETFs, which finally gained approval on January 10th.

A while after this approval, BTC went on to sharply rally toward the $49,000 level, but the asset’s run was very short-lived as its price plummeted hard back towards the price prior to the move, thus erasing all the gains.

The Coinbase Premium Gap had been notably positive alongside the surge, but the indicator then showed its plunge into the negative territory alongside this quick retrace. It would appear that some American institutional traders may have used the opportunity to harvest their profits.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has been moving sideways since the quick rally and drawdown, as its price is still floating around the $45,800 level.

Bitcoin Price Chart

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Bitcoin Blasts Off As Institutionals Continue Buying On Coinbase

Bitcoin has observed a sharp rally beyond the $47,000 level as data shows buying pressure on Coinbase has displayed no signs of letting off.

Bitcoin Has Surged More Than 4% In Last 24 Hours As ETF Deadline Nears

After the asset’s indecisiveness over the last few days, the cryptocurrency has appeared to have picked its direction in the last 24 hours, as its price has increased sharply.

At the peak of this surge, the coin had crossed beyond the $47,300 mark, but since then, the coin has registered some pullback as it’s now down to $46,500. The below chart shows how Bitcoin has performed during the last few days.

Bitcoin Price Chart

With this surge, the coin is up over 4% in the last 24 hours. The only cryptocurrencies in the top 20 market cap list that have attained better returns during this period are Solana (SOL) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

This latest rally to levels not visited since March 2022 has come for the cryptocurrency as the US SEC deadline for a decision on BTC spot ETFs is approaching fast.

With the expectation in the market widely being that the ETFs would get approved, it’s not surprising that buyers may be jumping in, expecting the asset to rally further after the ETFs start trading.

Data of an indicator could also point towards large entities being involved in accumulation in this leadup to the day of decision.

BTC Coinbase Premium Gap Has Been Positive For More Than A Week Now

As CryptoQuant Netherlands community manager Maartunn pointed out in a post on X, the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap has been positive for several consecutive days.

The “Coinbase Premium Gap” refers to a metric that keeps track of the difference between the Bitcoin prices listed on cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase (USD pair) and Binance (USDT pair).

This indicator’s value tells us about the difference in the buying (or selling) behaviors on the two largest platforms in the sector. Below is a chart showing the recent trend in this metric’s 14-day simple moving average (SMA).

Image

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap has been positive for almost 2024, with only one dip in the metric coming on the first day of the year.

This suggests that the buying pressure on Coinbase has been greater than on Binance for over a week now. US-based institutional investors widely use the former, while the latter hosts more global traffic.

Thus, this indicates that large institutional traders have possibly been going shopping recently. Another indicator that suggests accumulation from the whales is the “large holders netflow” metric from IntoTheBlock, which has displayed positive spikes recently.

Bitcoin Large Holders Netflow

“Large holders bought the dip! Bitcoin holders holding >1% of the supply accumulated more than 14k BTC over the past week as prices dipped below $43k,” explains IntoTheBlock.