Bitcoin ETF: Recent Grayscale ruling whets whales’ appetites

• Bitcoin broke through the $27,000-barrier on Sunday.
• The price rip also bolstered its demand in the derivatives market.

Bitcoin [BTC] blasted past $27,000 in the last 24 hours, as market participants braced for a continued upward trend.

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

The king coin kept moving northwards until it faced strong resistance at $27,900, data from CoinMarketCap showed. At the time of writing, BTC exchanged hands at $27,724, but hopes of the coin gaining bullish strength in the wake of recent legal wins remained high.

Whales accumulate Bitcoin

With the SEC deciding against the appeal in the keenly watched case against digital asset manager Grayscale Investments, expectations of a Bitcoin spot ETF becoming a reality have become higher than ever. Probably, this played on the minds of whale investors as well.

As per a recent post by on-chain sleuth Ali Martinez, the user cohort having 100-1,000 coins in their wallets accumulated roughly 117 BTCs since the aforementioned development. At going market rates, the newly added supply amounted to $3.24 million.

#Bitcoin whales bought around 117 $BTC in the past 48 hours, worth roughly $3.2 million. pic.twitter.com/Aoshmy0r4D

— Ali (@ali_charts) October 15, 2023

A widely observed phenomenon in financial markets is smart-money investors using the consolidation phase of a fundamentally strong asset to add to their existing stashes.

Spot ETFs, which could potentially drive greater capital infusion into Bitcoin and the wider market, were seen as the next big thing.

Elements of doubt

However, despite the positive developments, there remained concerns about Bitcoin’s next movements. In a separate post, Ali Martinez highlighted that long-term holders (LTH) of the king coin had qualms about a BTC price correction in the short-term, according to NUPL reading.

Note that NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss) specifically looks at the difference between unrealized profit and unrealized loss. This is done to determine whether the network as a whole is currently in a state of profit or loss.

#Bitcoin long-term holders are exhibiting "fear" amid concerns of a significant $BTC price correction! pic.twitter.com/7Zqkygibqd

— Ali (@ali_charts) October 15, 2023

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Speculative interest jumps

Bitcoin’s price rip also bolstered its demand in the derivatives market. Open Interest (OI) in Bitcoin Futures contracts jumped 5% to $11.67 billion in the last 24 hours, as per Coinglass. In fact, a sustained increase was observed ever since the SEC vs. Grayscale development last Friday.

Source: Coinglass

Moreover, the number of longs continued to outpace the shorts, as per the Longs/Shorts Ratio. This implied that more traders were hopeful of a northwards movement of Bitcoin in the short term.

Source: Coinglass