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Back at $13K: Bitcoin Unfazed by Profit Takers After Rise to 2020 High
The bitcoin market looks to be shrugging off increased selling pressure from profit takers after prices surged this week.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 10:22 a.m. Published Oct 22, 2020, 11:19 a.m.
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The bitcoin market looks to be shrugging off increased selling pressure from profit takers after prices surged this week.
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- On Wednesday, bitcoin jumped over 7% to hit 15-month highs above $13,000 after payments giant PayPal (ticker: PYPL) announced support for cryptocurrencies.
- Cryptocurrency exchanges tracked by blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis received a total of 106,519 BTC on Wednesday, the highest daily inflow since Oct. 2. A similar spike was observed on Sept. 4.
- That could be a concern for bulls, as flows to exchanges often precede sell-offs.
- "The pickup in exchange inflows indicates some investors rushed to liquidate their holdings (take profit) in the rising market," Philip Gradwell, chief economist at Chainalysis, told CoinDesk over WhatsApp.
- However, there's reason to believe that any higher levels of sales were absorbed Wednesday, as bitcoin's trade intensity (a measure of how many times an inflowing coin is traded) jumped to a two-month high of 5.8. That's more than double the 90-day average.
- Each of the 106,519 bitcoins sent to exchanges yesterday was traded on average 5.8 times, meaning the market had capacity to absorb the sales.
- "While people are taking advantage of high prices, they are being outweighed by buyers," Gradwell said.
- As such, the ongoing price rally looks to have legs. Bitcoin is currently trading around $13,020, having witnessed a pullback from $13,230 in the past 12 hours, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.
- So far today, about 30,000 BTC have been transferred to exchanges, Gradwell noted.
- Going forward, there's likely to be no shortage of buyers amid the optimism generated by PayPal's move into crypto services and increasing institutional participation.
- "2020 is fast becoming the year of crypto acceptance and we see 2021 as the year of mainstream adoption," Constantin Kogan, managing director at Wave Financial Group, told CoinDesk in an email.
- Bitcoin will maintain "a strong bullish trend and rise beyond $14,000 by the year's end," he said.
Also read: PayPal Embraces Crypto, Igniting Market as Mainstream Adoption Inches Closer
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
알아야 할 것:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Here's what bitcoin bulls are saying as price remains stuck during global rally
It's about a lot more than "zooming out." Supply overhangs and investor "muscle memory" regarding gold help explain bitcoin's poor absolute and relative performance.
알아야 할 것:
- Bitcoin has failed so far to act as an inflation hedge or safe-haven asset, lagging badly behind gold, which has surged amid high inflation, wars, and interest rate uncertainty.
- Crypto advocates argue that bitcoin’s weakness reflects a temporary supply overhang, investor “muscle memory” favoring familiar precious metals and its correlation with risk assets, rather than a collapse in long-term demand.
- Many bitcoin proponents still see BTC as a superior long-term store of value and “digital gold,” predicting that, once traditional hard assets are overbought, capital will rotate into bitcoin, allowing it to “catch up” to gold.
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