On Wednesday, the US stock market was closed for the Juneteenth holiday, while the crypto market continued trading. Bitcoin traded sideways, while altcoins saw some gains.
According to Bitpush data, BTC rebounded to a level of $65,700 earlier in the day, but the bullish momentum did not last. By midday Eastern Time, it dropped to around $64,678. At the time of writing, the latest trading price for Bitcoin was $65,049.6, with a 24-hour volatility of less than 1%.
Altcoins benefited from positive news related to regulation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with most of the top 100 altcoins seeing gains.
Consensys announced earlier that the SEC had notified the company that it would end its investigation into ETH 2.0, calling it a “major victory” for the industry.
In the past 24 hours, Fetch.AI (FET) led the gains with a 21.11% increase, followed by Akash Network (AKT) up 19.98%, and SingularityNET (AGIX) up 19.93%. JasmyCoin (JASMY) saw the biggest drop, down 4.46%, followed by Toncoin (TON) down 1.52%, and Monero (XMR) down 1.15%.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is currently $2.36 trillion, with Bitcoin’s market share at 54%.
Whales have sold over $1 billion worth of BTC in the past two weeks. CryptoQuant, a chain analysis company, reported on Wednesday that whale addresses sold over $1.2 billion worth of BTC in the past two weeks, likely through brokers rather than on public markets. The report suggested that long-term Bitcoin holders and miners were among the biggest sellers of the asset in the past two weeks.
Analysts noted that miners may be shifting their focus more towards the hot field of artificial intelligence (AI) rather than Bitcoin, leading them to sell Bitcoin rewards instead of holding onto them.
Bernstein reaffirmed its target of $200,000 for the end of 2025 for Bitcoin. Analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra wrote in a report that Bitcoin ETFs would receive approval from major securities firms and large private banking platforms, reaffirming the target of $200,000 for BTC by the end of 2025.
Analysts suggested that institutional basic trading is the “Trojan horse” adopted by BTC, with investors now assessing “net long” positions as they are satisfied with the increase in ETF liquidity.