On February 12, the Bitcoin (BTC) price reached a new high of $ 48,985, before returning to the $ 46,000 level.
A quick look at the 4-hour chart shows the best rated cryptocurrency trading in what appears to be a brief consolidation phase, but BTC is still maintaining its bullish momentum through a pattern of higher highs and lows.
If BTC can maintain its current pace and structure, a move to the $ 50,000 level may occur before the weekend is over.
A report released by Decentrader analysts shows that, as Bitcoin’s liquid supply is decreasing, demand for the top cryptocurrency has increased as the number of BTCs that do not move in the chain for a long period of time also increases.
As can be seen in the chart above, BTC currently has a net supply of around four million coins and the number has steadily declined since June 2020, as whales and institutional investors increase their exposure to this nascent asset class.
Further evidence of the growth of big players can be found by looking at the increase in portfolios with more than 1000 BTC.
As the number of large wallets grows, the number of smaller wallets remains stable or decreases, indicating that “larger players are collecting bitcoin from smaller players”.
PayPal delves deeper into cryptocurrency
Additional optimistic news for the cryptocurrency industry came when PayPal announced that it plans to extend its cryptographic services to UK residents.
This marks the first time that users outside the United States will be able to purchase encryption through the platform that should be available on the PayPal and Venmo apps by the end of the second quarter of 2021.
In an effort to keep up with the likes of PayPal and the Cash App, Apple Pay has unveiled a new partnership with BitPay that will allow Apple Wallet users to use their BitPay card to make purchases.
It was also found that Grayscale Investments may soon bring a new level of exposure to decentralized finance, as a newly filed corporate registry in the State of Delaware shows that the asset manager is considering Yearn Finance as a potential future offering.
Turbulent trading sets the tone in traditional markets
Traditional markets faced pressure on Friday after the February 11 announcement that federal regulators launched investigations into Robinhood and Reddit for signs of market manipulation related to the recent wild movements seen in stocks like GameStop and AMC.
After resisting the initial slowdown, all three major indices managed to rise higher and end the day positive with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ closing the session at record levels, up 0.47% and 0.50%, respectively. The Dow Jones also managed to extract a positive gain of 0.09%.
The broader cryptocurrency market continued to rise with several projects recording double-digit gains and new historical records.
Ether (ETH) ventured deeper into unfamiliar territory on Friday by setting and setting a new record high at $ 1,863, while Polkadot (DOT) was the top 10 best performing currency, experiencing a 21% increase during the night to a new high at 29.52.
Other notable performances include the Algorand pure betting protocol (ALGO), which increased 38% to a 2021 high of $ 1.84, and Tezos (XTZ), which saw its price rise 23% to a new high of $ 5.41.
The overall capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is now $ 1.48 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 60.4%.