The Bitcoin (BTC) price is back above $7,000 with the altcoin market also posting significant returns over the last 24-hour trading period.
Bitcoin’s latest assault at the $7,000-price level triggered a bloodbath for shorts on BitMEX with about $10 million liquidated within a 1-hour window earlier on Thursday (April 16, 2020).
Meanwhile, reports suggest a massive outflow of Bitcoin from crypto exchanges as retail traders appear to favor “hodling” with the block reward halving expected to happen in less than a month.
Bitcoin Price Staging Another Climb Above $7,000
The Bitcoin (BTC) price has crossed the $7,000 mark, gaining close to 5% since the start of the day. The top-ranked cryptocurrency is yet to find any momentum at the $7,100 price mark with five consecutive attempts to scale this level met with resistance.
Since dropping to $3,800 during ‘Black Thursday,’ — March 12, 2020, the Bitcoin price has been unable to reclaim its 2020 opening level of $7,200. These price struggles have left the top-ranked crypto in the red in terms of year-to-date (YTD) performance.
The current Bitcoin price rise has also seen massive liquidations on BitMEX. Data from crypto trading analytics platform Coinalyze showing $10 million in short positions being liquidated in less than 1 hour.
That escalated quickly … almost $10M shorts got liquidated… https://t.co/0xZLfgEt5R$BTC #Bitcoin #cryptotrading pic.twitter.com/SMb2yHCkOR
— Coinalyze (@coinalyzetool) April 16, 2020
With trading on BitMEX highly leveraged — as high as 100x — slight changes in Bitcoin spot price can cause a cascade of liquidations for either short or long positions. Longs on BitMEX have also felt with the heat on Thursday as well with Skew reporting a total of $23 million in BitMEX liquidations as at press time.
Holding with Halving in Mind?
Thursday’s Bitcoin price gain also comes at a time of reports of massive withdrawals from crypto exchanges. With the Bitcoin block reward halving happening in mid-May it appears BTC holders are hoping for the event to cause a significant response in the local price action.
Previous halvings have occupied a pivotal place in the bull cycle for Bitcoin with the spot price reaching a new all-time high (ATH) in the year immediately following the event. Bitcoin’s last ATH was back in mid-December 2017 when the BTC price rose to $19,800.
As previously reported by Blockonomi, stakeholders like Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz continue to espouse bullish sentiments about Bitcoin. Bitcoin enthusiasts will be hoping that the current upward trend will see the top-ranked crypto move away from this sideways price action into a more sustained bull run.
Any serious bull-run for Bitcoin will only happen if the top-ranked crypto can finally surmount the $7,500 resistance level which has proved difficult over the last month. If buying pressure persists, then the bulls may be able to stage another go at the elusive $7,500 price mark.
Green Day for Crypto Market
Apart from Bitcoin, the altcoin market has also experienced significant gains over the last 24 hours with Ether (ETH) gaining close to 10%. The top-ten cryptos are all in the green with XRP and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) up by 3% and 4% respectively.
BCH recently had its block reward halving as well as its fork Bitcoin SV (BSV) which also up by about 2.6%. The post-halving price action for both cryptos had been negative along with network stresses as miners have moved their hashing power to the BTC chain which still has a 12.5 BTC block reward.
BCH and BSV both had halvings one month before BTC because Bitcoin Cash used a different difficulty adjustment algorithm back in 2017 which saw faster block times. Litecoin (LTC) and EOS have also posted significant gains and are up by 9% and 3% respectively.
