It’s been a tough past few days for Bitcoin. After plunging approximately $1,000 in 24 hours, the cryptocurrency has yet to decisively bounce.
The lack of recovery has led some to suggest that BTC is primed to move under $9,000. As reported by Bitcoinist previously, a top trader opined that with the breakout. Bitcoin is primed to return to $8,575 in the coming week. That would amount to a 10% drop from current prices.
Yet these fears may be invalidated with news that there is a confluence of buy support for BTC around the $9,000s, coupled with a wider spike in demand for cryptocurrency.
Bitfinex’s Bitcoin Order Book Is Favoring Bulls
According to Alistair Milne, the CIO of Altana Digital Currency Fund, there has been an influx of Bitcoin bids on Bitfinex’s order book.
His data shows that there is approximately 6,163 BTC worth of buy orders from $8,700 to $9,400, while there is 2,807 BTC worth of sell orders from $9,400 to $10,100.
That’s to say, there is currently more demand to buy BTC than sell it. This has the ability to act as a bull catalyst moving forward should the buy orders continue to support Bitcoin’s price.
Bids are stacked on Bitfinex again … pic.twitter.com/K5oVbBjGX2
— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) June 14, 2020
This isn’t the only sign that BTC is seeing strong buy-side demand.
Data from TradingView.com shows that Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is trading on secondary markets at a premium to the spot price of BTC.
As of the last trading session on June 12th, shares of the trust (GBTC) were about 20% more valuable than the BTC that backs each share.
A high GBTC premium over the spot market, analysts say, is indicative of strong retail demand for Bitcoin. After all, GBTC is effectively the only viable way one can gain exposure to Bitcoin through one’s Wall Street brokerage.
There’s Institutional Demand Too
There is a propensity to buy Bitcoin amongst institutions as well, it seems.
Ecoinometrics reported that as of last week, there is around $300 million worth of call options open through the CME’s Bitcoin market. In comparison, there is only about $6 million worth of put options.
The CME’s Bitcoin market is mainly utilized by institutional players due to the high barriers to entry: the minimum order sizes and how relatively hard it is to set up an account on Coinbase vs. the CME.
Call options are financial contracts that are bought by investors wanting to benefit from an asset moving higher. As Investopedia explains:
“Call options are financial contracts that give the option buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock, bond, commodity or other asset or instrument at a specified price within a specific time period.”
This buy-side demand for Bitcoin is further corroborated by a survey from Fidelity Investments, a $2 trillion asset manager.
The Wall Street giant reported this week that a large number of institutions it surveyed have or are interested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 36% of respondents have exposure to the digital asset market, while 80% are interested in the industry for basically one of three reasons:
- Cryptocurrencies are uncorrelated with other asset classes over the long run
- Cryptocurrencies may be “an innovative technology play”
- Digital assets have “high potential upside”
Featured Image from Shutterstock Price tags: xbtusd, btcusd, btcusdt Bitfinex's Order Book Is Strongly Stacked In Favor of Bitcoin Bulls