Bitcoin Hits 7-Day Double Digit Gain As It Surges To Over $30K

Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, saw a seven-day double-digit gain this week, as it recaptured the $30,000 price level.

Early Monday morning, BTC was trading at $30,936.86, painting a huge gain of around 3% over the past 24 hours and a double-digit spike of over 10% in the past seven days.

The impressive performance of the world's first-ever crypto asset depicts Bitcoin's strong momentum, which according to Matteo Greco, the research analyst of the publicly listed digital asset and fintech investment business Fineqia International, is in "contrast to the broader digital asset market."

"Over the past month, the growing investor confidence in the imminent approval of BTC Spot ETFs has driven considerable momentum toward BTC," Greco told International Business Times.

"This, combined with the scheduled BTC halving in the latter part of April 2024 -- a historic milestone event for the Bitcoin network -- has prompted investors to favor BTC over other digital assets."

The king of crypto forges ahead and showcases its "resilience in comparison to other digital assets, with its dominance increasing by 1% over the past week. This follows three consecutive weeks of a 0.5% increase, bringing the Bitcoin dominance to 52.4%. Notably, the dominance touched a year-to-date all-time high of 52.6% last Friday," Greco explained.

Bitcoin's volatility in the past week triggered an upsurge in trading activity, with daily trading volume on centralized crypto exchange platforms reaching as high as $16.24 billion between Oct. 16 and Oct. 22, based on a 7-day moving average metrics, the third-highest volume prerecorded over the last 60 days.

This boost in trading activity, according to Greco, is primarily because of the surge in Bitcoin trading.

"A closer look at the cumulative trading volume on centralized exchanges over the past 7 days reveals that BTC's total volume during this period was $6.4 billion, signifying a 68.4% increase in comparison to the $3.8 billion recorded in the preceding week. Similarly, Ethereum (ETH) saw its total volume in the last 7 days reach $1.8 billion, reflecting a 20% increase compared to the $1.5 billion recorded the week before," the Finequia research analyst further explained.

But, what could be the driving factor behind the surge in Bitcoin trading activity?

Last week, a crypto news outlet erroneously reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application of BlackRock.

The price of Bitcoin immediately reacted and gained over $2,000 on the false report, which eventually saw liquidations of approximately $100 million, with holders intending to take profit from their holdings.

But, following BlackRock's confirmation that the report was false, via its spokesperson, who said, "BlackRock's iShares spot Bitcoin Application is still being reviewed by the SEC" and Cointelegraph's admission of disseminating inaccurate information, the gain Bitcoin saw was immediately erased.

"Last Monday, a misreported news item erroneously suggested a BTC Spot ETF approval, leading to a swift and drastic price pump followed by a dump. BTC surged from $28,000 to $30,000 upon the false news release but quickly retraced to its initial trading levels when the inaccuracy was revealed. This rapid and substantial price fluctuation resulted in approximately $100 million in BTC liquidations within the 30 minutes following the news, highlighting the heightened volatility," Greco said.

The research analyst also pointed out that Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust's (GBTC) discount also underlined the growing optimism of the market in SEC's imminent approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF filings.

"The increasing trust in BTC Spot ETFs approval is also evident when examining the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) discount. The discount, which stood at around 43% in June when Blackrock filed for its ETF, has significantly narrowed over the past few months. Following the news of the SEC's decision not to appeal against Grayscale in relation to the August 29th ruling, the discount began to narrow and has continued to do so. As of now, the discount is at 11%, the lowest level recorded since mid-August 2021," Greco said.

BTC was trading in the green zone at $30,598.11 as of 9:28 a.m. ET Monday, with a 24-hour trading volume up by 45.90% at $18.19 billion -- representing a 2.06% spike over the past 24 hours and a 10.1% gain in the last seven days.

Latest data from CoinMarketCap shows Bitcoin's total circulating supply stands at 19.52 million tokens, with its value up by 2.06% at a $$597.19 billion market cap.