Bitcoin has been slowing down on its bullish momentum over today’s trading session, but the crypto market continues to push to the upside. BTC’s price still records profits in the last 24 hours and 7 days with a 3% and 3.3% respectively.
Related Reading | Bitcoin Breaks Above Realized Price Again, Bottom Finally In?
The cryptocurrency was probably affected by a decline in the legacy market. For the past months, Bitcoin has displayed a high correlation with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.
The S&P 500 was seeing important gains since the start of July 2022 after a major bearish price action took it from around 4,800 to its current levels at around 3,800. In the past week, the index took a bearish turn which seems to be contributing to BTC’s price incapacity to break resistance at $22,000.
BTC’s price with minor gains on the 4-hour chart. Source: BTCUSDT Tradingview
On the other hand, the crypto market has been seeing positive developments. The second crypto by market cap Ethereum has a date for its highly anticipated event, “The Merge”, investors have absorbed the selling pressure without BTC’s price losing its 2017 all-time high in high timeframes, there is far less leverage in the crypto market.
In addition, research firm Santiment records an increase in Bitcoin whales’ activity. These large investors have been triggering network activity as they seem to accumulate BTC at its current levels. On today’s price action, Santiment stated the following while sharing the chart below:
About three hours ago, the amount of #Bitcoin transactions valued at over $1m spiked to its highest value in over a month. Whale moves are busy today, and spikes such as this one can often be a precursor to price direction shifts.
Source: Santiment via Twitter
As NewsBTC reported, BTC whales have been more active seems BTC dropped to its current levels. Addressees with over 10,000 BTC added 30,000 to their holdings.
Bitcoin Network Activity Needs More Fuel
Data from Mempool.Space indicates that an increase in Bitcoin network activity has led to major rallies. This activity is measured by transaction fees, and how much users are paying for sending a BTC transaction.
This metric trended to the downside since mid-2021 but has begun displaying potential signs of recovering over the past month. Bitcoin transaction fees have been on the rise during the last 30 days potentially hinting at more network activity and increasing the change of future appreciation.
Related Reading | Liquidations Cross $230 Million As Ethereum Barrels Past $1,400
However, network activity is still low in higher timeframes. Additional data from analyst Ali Martinez records a decline in the number of new BTC addresses. This metric stands at an 11-month low with a sharp increase in the BTC supply sent to crypto exchanges. This often translates into selling pressure. The analyst said:
Generally, a steady decline in the number of new addresses created on a given blockchain leads to lower prices over time.
#Bitcoin | Nearly 32,000 $BTC, worth roughly $672 million, have been sent to known #crypto exchange wallets over the past four days. pic.twitter.com/lXcKetuRLK
— Ali Martinez (@ali_charts) July 18, 2022
