Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) ended at around $37,350, an increase of 0.8% compared to the previous week’s closing price of $37,000. It started with notable volatility, with BTC prices falling to $34,800 on Tuesday, but then made a strong recovery and reached almost $38,000 on Wednesday. BTC then fell again to $36,000 on Thursday. The second half of the week saw an uptick, with BTC ending the week at around $37,350.
BTC dominance, which measures Bitcoin’s market capitalization relative to the overall digital asset market, recovered after two consecutive weeks of decline and settled at around 52.6%. This represents an increase of 0.3% compared to the previous week and indicates a slowing in the dispersion of liquidity across the market following two weeks of solid momentum in the altcoin sector.
The recent rise in altcoin performance is supported by an analysis of the Total3 metric, which considers the sum of the market capitalizations of the top 125 altcoins. The index now stands at around $416.1 billion, the highest level since August 2022. This follows a solid rally led by the Bitcoin and ETF Spot stories in recent months, highlighting substantial positive momentum across the market, with significant gains in early May 2022 approaching market cap. It reached a level not seen since the collapse of UST-Luna, which triggered a recession.
Confirming the uptrend, several BTC indicators are showing strong momentum. Approximately 80% of addresses holding Bitcoin are currently profitable, indicating solid accumulation during the 2022 recession. Only about 20% of addresses have an average purchase price above $37,000, confirming that a bottom is likely to form sometime in 2022. This accumulation by short-term holders by long-term holders is typically seen in the later stages of a bear market. A cycle bottom is established. This is further supported by the unchanged BTC supply over the past 12 months, currently accounting for 70.2%, indicating the long-term commitment of most investors. Furthermore, the Bitcoin Irritant Supply Index, which measures the supply held in wallets with minimal spending history, reached an all-time high of 15.4 million BTC. This is consistent with our previous hypothesis depicting a recent surge in long-term holders who continued to accumulate assets without selling them during the 2022/2023 economic downturn, and was associated with the sale of BTC in their wallets. indicates minimal activity.
Examining BTC’s on-chain activity reveals positive trends. His daily transaction count, calculated on a 7-day average, is approaching around 575,000, and his total BTC on-chain transaction volume has reached a level not seen since the end of June. Transaction fees remain relatively high at $4-$5, indicating an overall upward trend in on-chain activity beyond centralized exchanges and financial instruments. This suggests that structural activity and interest are growing harmoniously across different investor cohorts.
Focusing on mining, recent reports indicate that Tether, the issuer of USDT, is expanding into mining with the aim of capturing around 1% of the total hashrate and securing a position in the top 20 mining farms. The company plans to invest $500 million. According to a BitVeria report, during the third quarter, miners focusing on power strategies managed to reduce the average direct BTC production cost by 35% from $21,100 to $13,800. This data highlights a significant improvement in the mining sector’s profitability compared to the challenges experienced through 2022 and parts of 2023.
Source: the-blockchain.com
