- Gate.io suffered a massive outflow of Bitcoin after an account owner withdrew a vast chunk of the king crypto from the exchange.
- Data shows that Bitcoin making a 40% rebound in January has attracted the largest inflows of institutional cash since June last year.
- Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) traded at a 43% discount to the Bitcoin spot price on February 7 after recovering to 36.2% in mid-January
With the crypto market attempting a full-blown recovery from the market catastrophes of 2022, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Gate.io, suffered a massive outflow of Bitcoin after an account owner withdrew a vast chunk of the king crypto from the exchange.
Among the outflows that stood out was activity by a single entity, withdrawing more than $120 million in Bitcoin (BTC) from Gate.io. According to whale tracker Mr. Whale, the transaction marked the second-largest withdrawal in the exchange’s history.
“JUST IN: Over $120,000,000 worth of #Bitcoin has been withdrawn out of http://Gate.IO exchange by a single entity, the second largest in its history.”
The crypto exchange currently has only 7,000 BTC on the market, an element of concern among market watchers.
A recent report from a reputable news source revealed that the availability of Bitcoin on exchanges has squatted to an all-time low of 2.24 million BTC. Moreover, the market witnessed a significant outflow during the weekend, with almost 10,000 BTC exiting the exchanges. These statistics have worsened the concerns about the state of the cryptocurrency market.
Bitcoin Active Addresses Increase
Following an extended bearish phase, the crypto market witnessed a revival in 2023, with Bitcoin leading the resurgence. The number of Bitcoin addresses holding a balance of at least 0.01 has reached a new all-time high, surpassing 11.5 million, according to Glassnode data. This comes after a recent surge in Bitcoin price and a rise in active addresses, which is now more than 805,000. Furthermore, Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index has reached the “Greed” zone and risen to 56 points.
Based on CoinMarketCap data, the flagship crypto holds a dominant 41.4% (approximately $442 billion) of the total crypto market cap of over $1.07 trillion, while Ethereum (ETH) records 18.7% (roughly $200 billion).
At the time of writing, Bitcoin traded at $22,947 after gaining 0.59% on the last day. It was recording a 24-hour trading volume of $24.3 billion. The price is up 0.7% in the previous week and 35.4% in the last month.
Bitcoin Takes ‘Lion’s Share’ As Institutional Inflows Hit 7-Month High
Still, on the king crypto, data shows that Bitcoin making a 40% rebound in January has attracted the most significant inflows of institutional cash since June last year.
According to digital asset investment and trading group CoinShares, $117 million was infused into the crypto bucket during the last week of January. The revelation came during the firm’s “Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly” report on January 30. The information referred to Bitcoin as “on the radar as an institutional investment opportunity.”
As CoinShares’ latest data demonstrated, it took only weeks of Bitcoin price action recovering previous losses to ignite a notable turnaround in investment behavior. Notably, the data was not limited to the U.S. alone but the whole world. Besides the U.S., Germany was also cited, leading the pack with 40% of the week’s tally, followed by Canada.
In a Twitter thread that accompanied the report, CoinShares wrote:
“Last week’s U.S. bears seem to have changed their mind with US$117m inflows, including US$26m from the United States.”
Besides the U.S., Germany was also cited, leading the pack with 40% of the week’s tally, followed by Canada.
While altcoins follow on the heels of Bitcoin, institutions are more interested in Bitcoin, particularly regarding cash. The CoinShares report read, “The focus was almost entirely on Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin’s popularity among investors is seen among market participants who expect a potential shift in preferences away from the Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) playing field. In this regard, a famous Twitter account Pillage Capital argued:
“This is evidence that institutional money is not sold on the Ethereum thesis.”
GBTC Sinks Towards New Record Discount
In related news, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) traded at a 43% discount to the Bitcoin spot price on February 7 after recovering to 36.2% in mid-January.
The report comes as Grayscale continues to suffer the challenges affecting its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), after the collapse of crypto exchange FTDX in November 2022. Nevertheless, GBTC was already neck-deep in challenges, with Grayscale trying to compel the U.S. regulators to enable it to convert to the country’s first Bitcoin spot price exchange-traded fund.
