Bitcoin fights for $55,000, boosted by whales, US, BofA and US Bank

Bitcoin´s bulls, the 'hodlers',the strong hands of the market, and all the crypto-community that were anxiously awaiting and bid for the queen of cryptos to reach $100,000, enthusiastically celebrate the rally of the cryptoasset that has led it to conquer $55,000 on Wednesday. The price falters slightly on Thursday, despite technical analysts proclaiming that the all-time high of $65,000 is the target to reach.

The most conservative experts, however, place the resistance to overcome in a range that goes from $52,000 to $55,000, where the digital currency stopped exactly, although it could be nothing more than a pause to take a breather, since it surpassed the September highs. "Now there is nothing left until the annual and historical highs. And above the psychological $100,000 that everyone has been talking about for many months," says José María Rodríguez, technical analyst at Bolsamanía.

Overall, the entire cryptocurrency market is in the green, with ethereum above $3,500 and total capitalization at $2.3 trillion. "Investors should expect the rally to continue as long as there isn’t a big correction in equity markets, which could potentially have a spillover effect on crypto markets as well," comments Naeem Aslam, analyst at AvaTrade. Nor can we rule out some negative news triggering profit-taking, as the rise so far in October is 25% (it has accumulated nearly 80% gains since January). In addition, it once again surpassed the billion-dollar mark in capitalization, making it larger than Facebook.

Among the main causes of the rally are recent comments from US authorities, which show the extent to which the market is keeping an eye on US´s steps to regulate cryptoassets. Last week, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, assured everyone that he does not plan to ban cryptocurrencies; this week, it was the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who echoed these comments by assuring that the agency he presides over does not have the authority to veto them either.

These statements were joined by a report from Bank of America (BofA) in which it has given its blessing to digital assets, DeFi and decentralized applications, in which it assures that they present "numerous opportunities for the future" and are therefore "too big to ignore any longer". In addition, US Bank begun offering crypto-custody services for Bitcoin and will evaluate whether it is feasible to expand to other digital currencies in the future.

WHALE ACTIVITY

In addition to everything stated above, one person or a large group of Bitcoin buyers, referred to as whales, appear to be behind Wednesday's price surge, according to data showing large Bitcoin trades on crypto exchanges during the first hours of trading in the United States.

According to blockchain data firm CryptoQuant, one individual or a group of people bought $1.6 billion worth of Bitcoins on the spot on trading platforms, starting on Coinbase, as 'CoinDesk' explains, between 03:15 pm and 03:16 pm Spanish time on Wednesday.

The timing of the buying came shortly after U.S. Republicans shared favorable comments on cryptocurrencies and amid growing market expectations that the U.S. could soon approve a futures-based Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The market consensus is that such a move by the SEC will be the catalyst for a big rally that will take Satoshi Nakamoto's creation to the April milestone and maybe as high as $100,000.