By Matteo Greco, Research Analyst at the publicly listed digital asset and fintech investment business Fineqia International
Analysing BTC supply, approximately 68.5% of the total circulating supply has remained untouched for at least one year, nearing its highest level. Additionally, BTC’s hashrate, indicating the computational power on the blockchain network, has reached an all-time high on a 7-day moving average.
These statistics underscore Bitcoin’s resilience. Long-term holders are increasing in number, reflecting a shift toward holding the asset for longer-term appreciation rather than speculative purposes. Simultaneously, the heightened competition among miners, despite an impending halving of mining rewards in a few months, demonstrates a strong commitment to securing the network and being profitable in doing it.
On a macroeconomic scale, the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for September, which will be released on Thursday, is expected to show a 3.6% inflation rate, slightly down from August’s 3.7%. Market participants do not anticipate further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve (FED) and predict an 78.9% probability of maintaining the current interest rates.
Bitcoin (BTC) closed the previous week at around $27,900, marking a 0.3% decrease compared to its closing value of $28,000 in the preceding week. BTC’s price demonstrated stability, briefly touching $27,160 midweek before rebounding to around $27,500, ultimately approaching the $28,000 mark over the weekend.
BTC continues to exhibit strength compared to other digital assets, with its dominance increasing by 0.5% for the second consecutive week. The Bitcoin dominance, which measures the relationship between Bitcoin’s market capitalisation and the total digital asset market capitalisation, presently stands at 50.9%. This marks a steep increase from 50.4% a week ago and 49.9% two weeks ago.
BTC’s price stability paired with increasing dominance signal a less favourable week for alternative digital assets. This pattern is corroborated by the Total3 metric, reflecting the overall market capitalisation of digital assets excluding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which decreased from $334.7 billion to $327.3 billion at the beginning of the previous week.
Turning to trading volume, the cumulative spot volume on centralized exchanges, assessed over a 7-day moving average, reached $12.34 billion from October 2nd to October 8th. This signifies a notable uptick in trading activity compared to any point in the four previous weeks, halting a three-month trend of declining trading activity.