Bitcoin price rose 10% in October. Here’s why
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The Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price closed September trading at $18,694, give or take a few dollars depending on your time zone.
When we turned our calendars to November, USD 20,548 worth of BTC virtual wallets were exchanged.
It boosts the world’s original crypto by 9.9% in October.
For some connection is Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQ: .IXIC) ended the month up 3.9%, while here in Australia is The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) rose 6.0%.
Bitcoin price gains surpass
At the peak of the excess return in October, Bitcoin price movements were less volatile than most crypto investors might have expected.
During the month, the token traded for a low of $18,320 and a high of $20,988, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Yes, there is a price discrepancy of 14.5%. But remember that Bitcoin gained 9.9% over this time. A pretty smooth ride for the virtual asset notorious for its volatility.
And it wasn’t just Bitcoin. Most altcoins joined the October rally.
Despite inflation remaining alarmingly high, crypto investor sentiment turned bullish amid hopes that the US Federal Reserve and other global central banks may not need to raise interest rates as quickly or as high as markets have priced in.
Higher rates have thrown up some turbulent headwinds for cryptos, which have suffered sell-offs along with other risk assets, such as high-growth technology stocks.
What now?
Where the Bitcoin price goes next will largely continue to depend on interest rates. Especially the policies enacted by the very influential Fed.
Recall that Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $68,790 on November 10 last year, as the world came to the end of more than a decade of ever-lower prices.
But October threw up some early signs that the Bitcoin price may be decoupled from risk assets, such as technology stocks.
Simon Peters, market analyst at eToro, explained that the crypto had held up well despite some disappointing earnings results from the biggest US tech companies.
That appears to be because the percentage of long-term owners, generally less likely to sell, hit all-time highs last month.
“These high ownership levels signal why we may see a disconnect between US stocks and Bitcoin,” he said.
Peters added:
At today’s price, it is unlikely that entities other than Bitcoin miners want or need to sell Bitcoin, while given stock market conditions and the negative forecasts from companies reporting earnings, there is perhaps a greater inclination to sell shares.
