(Kitco News) - Bitcoin (BTC) and the wider cryptocurrency market climbed higher in trading on Tuesday following a surprise interest rate decision in Australia where the country’s central bank bucked the prevailing trend and announced that it would only be raising interest rates by 25 basis points this week.
That helped spark a second consecutive bullish day in the stock market, which was further bolstered by a fresh labor market reading that showed U.S. job openings fell by the most in two and a half years during the month of August. This was a welcomed sight for the Federal Reserve, which has been attempting to tamp down excessive labor demand in the fight against inflation.
As a result of the positive developments, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all closed the day well in the green, up 3.06%, 2.80% and 3.34%, respectively.
Data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin bulls arrived in force during the early trading hours on Tuesday, propelling the top crypto from a low of $19,484 to an intraday high of $20,465. Bears attempted to break the building momentum in the afternoon session, but the smackdown was well defended by bulls, who managed to bid the BTC price back above support at $20,300.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff noted the change in tide in his morning Bitcoin brief, saying that “bulls have gained some slight momentum this week, and more price gains in the near term would likely start a price uptrend on the daily chart.”
Now is not the time for bulls to relent; however, as they “have more work to do in the near-term to suggest a price uptrend can be sustained,” Wyckoff warned.
This sentiment was echoed by cryptocurrency market analyst Pentoshi, who posted the following tweet identifying the zone between $21,700 and $22,000 as the next major hurdle to overcome.
There is a lot of work to do yet for $BTC. 21.7-22k is the first important major area
— Pentoshi ?? (@Pentosh1) October 4, 2022
Remember, markets move when people are offside
They move up to force you to buy, + move down to try to force you to sell. They force action on your part. Why did price stop moving at prev ath? pic.twitter.com/lsktrSxAXR
BTC accumulation rises
While the price of Bitcoin has struggled to generate any momentum over the past 6 months, crypto traders have taken advantage of the rock bottom prices by accumulating BTC at the highest rates since 2015.
According to a Twitter post from Ki Young Ju, CEO of crypto analytics platform CryptoQuant, “BTC accumulation level reached a 7-year high. Over 6-month-old Bitcoins now take 74% of the realized cap. It was 70%, and 77% at the last bottoms in 2019, and 2015 respectively.”
Simply stated, Bitcoins held for more than six months comprise a total of 74% of the top cryptos realized cap. The last time this metric was higher than it currently is was in 2015, when BTC had a value of $220. That increase to 77% occurred during the cycle bottom, and every surge in accumulation coincided with a bottom in the market.
Further verification that hodlers have been accumulating was provided by the crypto market intelligence firm IntoTheBlock, which posted the following tweet showing that the number of Bitcoin holders has continued to increase despite the ongoing crypto winter.
The number of #Bitcoin holders has been growing in the bear market ??
— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) September 27, 2022
Over 42M addresses are currently holding $BTC, 4.5M more than a year ago pic.twitter.com/BEx4HjVCeW
Altcoins climb higher
The altcoin market enjoyed widespread green on the back of a climbing BTC price, with 95% of the tokens in the top 200 posting gains on Tuesday.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
The biggest gainers of note include Constellation (DAG), which saw its price increase by 12.86% to $0.08555, followed by a 12.75% gain for SwissBorg (CHSB) and an 11.56% increase for Render (RNDR).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $970 billion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 40.2%.
