Key Takeaways:
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) regressed after coming ever close to its all-time high of $73,798. On Wednesday, the flagship cryptocurrency was changing hands at $73,562, just shy of its peak valuation from late April, but has since cooled off to a value in the $72,000 to $73,000 range.
Lagging Retail Interest Holding Bitcoin Away From Recording New All-Time High
Analysts pointed fingers at retail investors showing no more interest than usual in Bitcoin. In an October 29 X post, crypto analyst Miles Deutscher said that while the world’s largest cryptocurrency is on the verge of breaking all-time highs, retail interest was “still almost non-existent”.
Despite the recent rally, Google Trends data indicates that search interest for “Bitcoin” currently displays a score of 23 out of 100 relative to late May 2021, when search volumes for the digital asset reached their peak. Most notably, Bitcoin searches are only generating a fraction of the traffic that “artificial intelligence” has over the past week.
A report from crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant highlighted that while Bitcoin retail investors are returning “slowly” to the market, they have been significantly outperformed by larger Bitcoin investors throughout 2024. The report also noted that daily transactions by retail BTC investors hit their lowest level since 2020 on September 21 at $326 million.
However, the caveat here is that lowered retail activity often precedes Bitcoin price rallies, with investors being more likely to chase a catch-up trade if the cryptocurrency were to rally suddenly.
CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju highlighted that institutional demand for Bitcoin in custodial wallets has doubled that of retail interest over the past 12 months.
It was the launch of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US that was largely responsible for significant institutional interest in BTC. The 12 funds that are currently trading on Wall Street have taken in over $22.7 billion in net flows since they began trading in January 2024.
Data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin rose from a low of $67,541 to climb 5.86% and set a 20-week high of $71,500 on October 29. Accompanying this impressive price performance is a jump in trading volume, which doubled on that date to $47.5 billion. However, trading volume has dropped by 27% over the past 24 hours to $38.47 billion.
The price reversal is said to be the result of over $78 million in short positions being liquidated in the past 24 hours as investors looked to capitalize on their profits.
Bitcoin Records ATH Against the Euro, Pesos, Ruble, and Lira
Although Bitcoin is yet to breach its all-time high in US dollar value, the original cryptocurrency still managed to register a new ATH against the euro and some other global fiat currencies. On October 29, BTC surpassed 68,000 EUR or $73,561 on multiple European crypto exchanges, establishing a new ATH in the bloc.
This marked the first time since March 2024 that Bitcoin has set a new all-time high against the euro. The discrepancy between BTC’s performance against the EUR and USD is due to changes in the dollar’s strength.
When Bitcoin last recorded its all-time high of $73,737, the exchange rate between the dollar and euro was 0.9113. The current exchange rate is 0.9238, indicating a weakening euro against the dollar.
One key factor behind the USD’s renewed strength is the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates over the past 3 years to bring inflation down to its target rate of 2%.
Bitcoin also achieved a new ATH against the Canadian dollar, recording a price of just over 102,000 CAD, or approximately $73,225. The flagship cryptocurrency also reached new all-time highs against weaker and hyperinflated fiat currencies, like the Turkish Lira, Argentine Pesos, and the Russian Ruble.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $72,328 – up 0.05% over the past 24 hours.
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