Bitcoin price began the week with an increase, but there are many reasons for this, and the situation could quickly reverse. Although surpassing $71,700 is positive, at the time of writing, continued closings below $71,700 suggest a non-negligible risk of a decline. Indeed, a few minutes ago, the price fell back to the $70,800 range.
Why Are Cryptocurrencies Rising?
Predictions for the weekend were already positive, and we had mentioned that $70,000 could be tested on Saturday and Sunday. This forecast, based on Friday’s data, not only came true but was exceeded. BTC climbed to $72,797 while some cryptocurrencies saw gains exceeding 20%.
While some hastily view spot Bitcoin ETF entries as the primary factor, this perspective prevents a broader view of the overall picture. For instance, at the time of writing, the expectation of a decline is due to the potential of having seen the largest net outflow since March 20.
Reasons Behind the Rise
There are many reasons proposed for the rise. For example, one is the USDCe collateral that CryptoQuant CEO warned could lead to disaster. Ethena’s stablecoin USDCe was used to purchase $500 million in Bitcoin. However, MicroStrategy‘s purchase of over $600 million in BTC on March 19 did not trigger such a rise. With a spot volume of $10 billion, these entries are not that significant.
Here, one might mention the investor sentiment being buoyed by the potential for billions of dollars in purchases. Could the answer to the rise be in macroeconomics? According to Yahoo Finance, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his latest shareholder letter that the resilience of the US economy could lead to “higher inflation and higher interest rates than the markets expect.”
Afterward, we saw that Gold ETF instruments started trading with a positive premium in China. However, things are not entirely smooth in China either. Eric Balcunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, says that the country’s citizens, acting independently of their own economy, have triggered premiums of up to 30% in gold ETFs.
The US government’s budget deficit is worsening with the approval of a $1.2 trillion spending package on March 23 and the forgiveness of student debts. Biden is proposing to forgive up to $20,000 in debt for 23 million borrowers. Moreover, this forgiveness, regardless of the students’ income situation, is of the kind that increases concerns.
Escalating trade tensions between the US and China are increasing interest in both gold and Bitcoin, while the yield on the US Treasury’s 2-year bonds reached a 4-month peak at 4.79%. It may not be clear what is happening today, but the growing concerns about the global economic outlook suggest we are entering an interesting period. Perhaps under these conditions, we are preparing for days when inflation, interest rates, and bond yields rise while Bitcoin and gold climb even higher?
