Bitcoin Yet Again on the Move, What Influential Factors are Pushing BTC Price to 10-Months High?

• Bitcoin and altcoin go green while BTC dominance reaches 59%
• The rally might be driven by institutions including ErisX, Fidelity, & Bakkt
• Technicals and fundamental all painted a bullish picture

  After going red on Sunday, Bitcoin has yet again turned green as the price starts surging. The leading cryptocurrency spiked to $7,500 level on the weekend but dropped down to $6,800.

  At the time of writing, BTC/USD has been trading at $7,311 with 24-hours greens of 3 percent. Bitcoin seems to be making its way upwards yet again, aiming for $8k now that will take it to the 10-months high level.

  Remember how in November we said that this move down (purple circle) could only be called a 'capitulation' in hindsight?

  Well, now we're here. The market has fully recovered from that plunge. pic.twitter.com/rLHXHeiqt9

  — Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) May 13, 2019

  In tandem with Bitcoin, altcoins have also turned green that is taking the total market cap to $217 billion. However, despite this hike in alts, BTC dominance has reached 59 percent.

  If the cycle repeats itself, we can easily see bitcoin at $50,000 to $100,000 in the next year or so.

  Past performance is not an indication of future results. https://t.co/eb1KjOuThx

  — Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) May 13, 2019

  Bitcoin rally seems to be in full effect showing no signs of correction that has the market participants turning extremely bullish.

  https://twitter.com/CryptoHayes/status/1127884894145798144

What Motivated The Buyers?

Though market saw bouts of upswings in late February and early April, the upswing that started in early May was the most significant and extended one. This was when price went from around $5,000 to $6,000 and then surpassing $7,000.

This uptrend came after New York Attorney General announced that it is investigating into Bitfinex and Tether for the loss of $850 million which further revealed Tether was only 74% backed by cash and cash equivalents. This led traders to exit from Tether and move that money into Bitcoin.

Likely the USDT debacle has something to do with this, but let's not forget that BTC was surging well before the NYAG slapped iFinex.

The answer to your second question is one I've been toting for a while now and can be summed up in 2 words: asymmetric risk https://t.co/JPzEpOzHgW

— Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) May 12, 2019

Before this all started, BTC also printed Golden Cross indicating improving technicals while fundamentals have been painting a bullish picture. Trading volume on exchanges also made records further pushing Bitcoin upwards.

New record for BitMEX trading volume. Praise be to volatility and our wonderful traders! pic.twitter.com/iLMGdpz65n

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) May 12, 2019

Institutions Driven Rally

According to economist and crypto trader Alex Kruger, this hasn’t been retail driven rather a combined effect of front-running Fidelity/Bakkt/Ameritrade/Etrade flows, front-running news, coordinated buying, and some other factor.

“A handful of large players, that started buying in waves. Systematic buying,”

Kruger said.

Last week the report of Fidelity Investments to open the buy and sell of BTC for institutional clients within a few weeks surfaced.

US-based crypto exchange ErisX also announced the public launch of its spot market trading, another step towards its goal to become a one-stop platform for spot and futures contracts trading in a regulated environment. Per its product page, ErisX will support USD trading pair with BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC.

ICE is also taking steps to ensure approval from CFTC for its Bitcoin futures contracts platform Bakkt. The parent company of NYSE recently acquired crypto custodial service and is further planning to register Bakkt as a licensed trust in the state of New York.

One of the strongest sign of a bull market has been the little effect of Binance hack on the market and even faster recovery from that. Additionally, last week saw New York City Blockchain Week while this week will witness the Consensus 2019 event.

This really is expected to continue and once Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) sets in, we are only going higher.