Matteo Greco, Research Analyst at Fineqia International, a listed digital asset and fintech investment firm.
Bitcoin (BTC) closed the week at about $68,400, down slightly by 0.8% from the previous week’s closing price of about $69,000. Throughout the week, BTC has seen significant volatility with a price range of 13.4%. The week started with strong momentum, with BTC surging to $72,000 on Monday. The price then hit a new all-time high of nearly $73,800 on Thursday, following highs above $73,000 on Wednesday and Thursday.
On the same Thursday, BTC plummeted to $68,000 before rebounding to around $71,400. Selling pressure continued on Friday and Saturday, with BTC trading as high as $64,700 and closing Saturday near $65,300. However, positive momentum returned on Sunday, nearly recovering the week’s losses and closing at around $68,400.
Despite volatility and price fluctuations, strong momentum continued for the BTC spot ETF last week, with net inflows recorded on every trading day. Weekly net inflows exceeded $2.5 billion, with net inflows exceeding $1 billion on Tuesday alone. Cumulative net inflows since inception currently amount to approximately $12.2 billion.
Trading volume for the BTC spot ETF has also trended upward, with total volume reaching $141.7 billion since inception, including nearly $28 billion traded last week. This has contributed to higher average daily volume since its inception, with daily volume exceeding $5.5 billion last week, which now stands at around $3.15 billion.
These figures highlight the continued investment momentum from traditional finance into the digital asset space. Despite BTC’s price stability over the past week, demand has primarily come from ETFs, while native digital asset investors have been more active on the selling side.
This trend is evident in the decline in BTC held by long-term holders. This means BTC has been unchanged for at least 155 days. At the beginning of 2024, this supply was approximately 16.3 million BTC, and has gradually decreased to approximately 15.1 million BTC today. This shift reflects that while traditional investors are driving buying activity through ETFs, investors in the underlying digital assets that accumulated during the 2022 and 2023 downturn are now seeking profits at a higher rate, reducing the supply of long-term holders.
This behavior is characteristic of the initial bull phase, when long-term holders distribute assets to new investors. Analyzing past cycles, if the current market is still in an uptrend, this pattern may continue until the supply from long-term holders matches the demand from new investors, which usually coincides with the peak of the cycle and the beginning of the downtrend phase. .
Notably, the BTC halving is about a month away, with previous cycles historically peaking between 6 and 12 months later. If historical patterns repeat, the peak of the current cycle could occur in late 2024 or the first half of 2025.