By
Bena Ilyas
April 16th, 2024
Bitcoin recovers above $50,000 for the first time in two weeks with several on-chain indicators turning positive and in favor of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Just ahead of Christmas Eve, Bitcoin has surprised investors by moving past $50,000 for the first time in two weeks. After trading sideways for the last few days, BTC has now gained 5.75% moving past $51,000 levels.
As of press time, Bitcoin is trading at $51,195 with a market cap of $966 billion. On-chain data provider Santiment reports that with the recent Bitcoin price surge, the trader sentiment has turned positive. It notes:
With Bitcoin back over $51k, the sentiment from traders has shifted back into positive range. As expected, $50k has become somewhat of a psychological support level, where traders become optimistic when above this threshold, & skeptical when below.
🥳 With #Bitcoin back over $51k, the sentiment from traders has shifted back into positive range. As expected, $50k has become somewhat of a psychological support level, where traders become optimistic when above this threshold, & skeptical when below. https://t.co/HLuy1TbDdH pic.twitter.com/R58ZXNIvjS
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 24, 2021
The price recovery for the world’s largest cryptocurrency has sent euphoria across the broader crypto market. The overall cryptocurrency market is up 5.46% in the last 24 hours adding $130 billion to investors’ wealth.
The interesting this is that the Bitcoin (BTC) price jump comes despite the US SEC rejecting two Bitcoin spot ETF applications. On the other hand, Bitcoin has delivered a slobbering performance in the month of December.
However, some metrics have turned positive after Bitcoin hit its month-low on December 4. The BTC price crash earlier this month sent the Bitcoin funding rates to a one-year low. However, this has begun to change as the funding rates turned positive. Currently, the Bitcoin funding rates are still lower than its 2021 highs. The reversal of the BTC funding rates clearly shows us that the investor sentiment might be turning positive once again.
Furthermore, the open interest in the Bitcoin perpetuals also crashed at the beginning of this month. This has reversed and on the rise currently. If we look at the Binance USDT margined perpetual, it has surged from 40,000 BTC since the crash to a current 62,000 BTC.
US SEC Rejects Two More Bitcoin Spot ETFs
While the US securities regulator approved a Bitcoin futures ETF earlier this year, it just isn’t comfortable with approving the Bitcoin spot ETFs. On Wednesday, the U.S. SEc rejected the proposals from Valkyrie Investments and Kryptoin stating that they have failed to meet the investor protection requirements from fraud and manipulative practices.
Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst said: “The fact that the SEC is disapproving faster than they needed to – we were optimistic about futures, but we’re not confident in a 2022 approval”.
This is not the first Bitcoin spot ETF rejection from the SEC. The securities regulator over the last 2-3 years have rejected dozens of such proposals.