Key Points
- Bitcoin’s price surpassed $64,200 on March 4, 2024, hinting at a bullish trend.
- Despite a 6% retracement from its peak, Bitcoin traders remain optimistic.
Bitcoin’s price experienced a significant surge, reaching a new 2024 peak of over $64,200 on March 4. This increase was driven by optimistic Bitcoin traders who were keen to invest early before the resumption of ETF trading.
Bitcoin Traders Remain Bullish
Interestingly, on-chain data indicated that even after Bitcoin’s price fell 6% from its peak of $64,000, speculative traders in the derivatives market continued to increase their bullish bets.
Bitcoin traders have shown a 300% increase in leveraged bets compared to the previous week. This milestone was achieved on March 4 when Bitcoin’s price exceeded the $64,000 mark for the first time in 840 days, dating back to November 15, 2021.
The Role of Bitcoin ETFs
However, the buying pressure in the cryptocurrency market subsided after Bitcoin ETFs, the primary drivers of the ongoing rally, ceased trading on March 1. As a result, Bitcoin’s price fell 6% towards the $60,000 support territory.
Despite this, on-chain data from February 28 to March 4 indicated that speculative Bitcoin traders remained primarily bullish. As per Santiment’s aggregate funding rate data, Bitcoin bulls are paying record fees to keep their long contracts open, confident in another major upswing in the coming week.
The current BTC aggregate funding rate value of 0.06% on March 3 is a remarkable 300% increase from the previous week’s opening value of 0.02% recorded on February 27. These elevated values suggest that leveraged Bitcoin long position holders are paying unusually high fees to short traders, anticipating larger profit margins if prices rise in the near term.
Bitcoin Price Forecast
If the current market dynamics persist, this 300% funding rate increase suggests that Bitcoin’s price is more likely to advance towards $70,000 than it is at risk of losing the $60,000 support in the coming week.
In confirmation of this stance, IntoTheBlock’s global in/out of money data shows that about 97% of existing Bitcoin holders are currently in profitable positions, meaning the majority might be reluctant to sell. This reduced selling pressure puts Bitcoin’s price in a prime position to maintain a relatively high support level above the $60,000 area.
If Bitcoin ETFs experience another buying frenzy as trading opens for the week on March 4, the highly leveraged bulls could capitalize on this to finally reclaim a new all-time high price of $70,000.
However, reaching $70,000 may not be straightforward as the bears could make another last-ditch effort to halt the rally once Bitcoin prices approach $65,000. The chart indicates a final cluster of 193,000 addresses that acquired 48,380 BTC 3 years ago at an average price of $65,164. A rapid profit-taking wave from these holders could significantly slow down the Bitcoin price rally to $70,000.
