Bitcoin Marches Ahead, Ethereum, Dogecoin Flat Amid Stocks' Reversal: Analyst Highlights Factors Supporting King Crypto's Rise To $71K

Benzinga · 10/16 02:59

Market bellwether Bitcoin maintained its upsurge Tuesday, defying the sharp decline in stock prices.

Cryptocurrency Gains +/- Price (Recorded at 9:30 p.m. EDT)
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) +2.22% $67,341.02
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)
               		 -0.30% $2,617.63
Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE)           -1.31% $0.1166

What Happened: The world's largest cryptocurrency bounced above $67,000 in early trading hours, the highest since July 29. Barring intermittent bouts of volatility, the coin broadly sustained its rally as of Monday overnight.

On the contrary, Ethereum failed to hold onto its gains after a spike to $2,679. 

Digital asset trading firm QCP Capital noted that the rally could be election-driven, following Donald Trump's significant lead on prediction markets against Kamala Harris.

Total cryptocurrency liquidations exceeded $304 million in the last 24 hours, the highest in over two weeks. More than $182 million in upside bets were erased.

Bitcoin's Open Interest rose 2.21% to $38.10 billion, indicating an influx of fresh money into the speculative market. 

The reading on the Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed index increased from 65 to 73,  indicating that the market was greedy.

Top Gainers (24-Hours)

Cryptocurrency Gains +/- Price (Recorded at 9:30 p.m. EDT)
Litecoin (LTC) +6.70% $71.98
Chiliz (CHZ) +5.18% $0.08104
Hedera (HBAR) +4.17% $0.05707

The global cryptocurrency stood at $2.31 trillion, following an increase of 1.04% in the last 24 hours.

Stocks fell sharply, failing to sustain Monday's rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 324.80 points, or 0.75%, to close at 42,740.42. The S&P 500 slipped 0.76% to end at 5,815.26, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite dropped over 1% to close at 18,315.59.

The decline was precipitated by a 4.69% fall in the shares of AI giant Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), a marked reversal from the record close on Monday. 

That said, Dow and the S&P 500 were up nearly 1% this month.

See More: Best Cryptocurrency Scanners

Analyst Notes: Widely-followed analyst and trader Rekt Capital highlighted points of interest on Bitcoin's daily chart to ascertain the next move.

"Consistent retesting of the black channel top as support on the daily timeframe is the key to enabling a bullish weekly close and thus confirming continued upside to ~$71,000," the analyst said. 

Cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez highlighted a strong correlation between Bitcoin's price rise and the behavior of large whales. 

"Interestingly, while BTC surged from $54,000 to $66,000 over the past week, whales offloaded or redistributed over 70,000 BTC, valued at roughly $4.2 billion," the analyst remarked.

Image via Unsplash

Read Next: