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The price of Bitcoin (BTC) brushed near $25,000 on Feb. 16, the highest level since August 2022, gaining 12% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin surged to a six-month high, according to Santiment on-chain analytics firm, on mild accumulation from 100 to 1,000 BTC traders.
🥳🚀 #Bitcoin has launched to a 6-month high, surprising the #bearish trader sentiment. With prices jumping above $24.2k for the first time since Aug. 14th, 2022, watch for whale addresses increasing as a sign of increased key stakeholder confidence. https://t.co/ztEhsIYNAY pic.twitter.com/ZJSfjrwJvA
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) February 15, 2023
In the first seven weeks of the year, Bitcoin (BTC) increased by about 50%, reaching a high of $24,903 on Feb. 16. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $24,610.
Institutional buying propels Bitcoin higher
Lookonchain, an on-chain data provider, explains what might have propelled Bitcoin and Ethereum higher.
Based on its findings, several funds and institutions have poured nearly $1.6 billion into the crypto market since Feb. 10. This is derived from the analysis of USDC stablecoin deposits and withdrawals on Circle from the said time to date.
1/ Why did the price of $BTC/$ETH suddenly rise today?
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 16, 2023
We found that several funds/institutions poured nearly $1.6B into the crypto market since Feb 10!👇 pic.twitter.com/WRaSv4YtgP
From the chart it posted, it deduced that several funds/institutions withdrew nearly 1.6 billion USDC from Circle and deposited only about 0.2 billion USDC.
More specifically, a mysterious fund tagged "0x3356" by Lookonchain withdrew 953.6 million USDC from Circle and transferred it to exchanges. Lookonchain suggests that today's explosive rise in Bitcoin's price might have something to do with this fund.
Also, it has spotted a "mysterious fund" that kept on pouring money into the crypto market as lead cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum dropped. Since Feb. 10, the address has withdrawn 155 million USDC from Circle and transferred it to exchanges.
It also noted that this "mysterious fund" also withdrew 397 million USDC from Circle through a separate address and transferred to exchanges since Feb. 10. Another fund related to FalconX also withdrew 143 million USDC from Circle, Lookonchain stated in its thread of tweets.
Vladislav Sopov