Bitcoin Bounces Off $50,000 as Milestone Price is Finally Hit

After closing in and pulling back several times since last Monday’s seven thousand dollar plus ‘Elon Candle’, Bitcoin finally broke the $50,000 barrier during the Asian trading session this Tuesday, Feb 16.

Tradingview.com charts using figures from Binance reported that the peak price was $50,085 around a couple of hours ago.

The move marks a gain of roughly 5.7% over the past 24 hours. Prices vary between exchanges and analytics providers but it has definitely traded higher than its previous peak on February 14 when it came just short of the $50k milestone. At the time of writing Bitcoin had pulled back to $49,350.

Analyst and trader Josh Rager rejoiced at the move, pointing out that BTC futures remained over $50k after the rejection.

The time for $50k $BTC has come

— Josh Rager 📈 (@Rager) February 16, 2021

Anthony Pompliano was also quick with the celebrations;

Bitcoin has reached $50,000 for the first time in history.

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) February 16, 2021

Bitcoin Exchange Balances Falling

OKEx director Lennix Lai noted the ATH and the surge in Open Interest on the Asian exchange;

#BTC ATH. OI on @okex is back across the board. Basis is consistently strong. Bull market 2.0’s just begin. pic.twitter.com/BirXujUZ3O

— Lennix Lai (OKEx) (@LennixOkex) February 16, 2021

Other charts indicate that BTC balances on exchanges have been falling which signals that it is being moved into safe storage or going into institutional funds. Very few are willing to sell here aside from those that brought the asset when it was much cheaper than today.

Old Coins Moving, Miners Hodling

In its latest weekly report, Glassnode noted that the Average Spent Output Lifespan indicator (ASOL) an indicator that measures the average age in days of all spent transaction outputs, is showing that holders of older coins appear to have taken advantage of the Musk driven market strength to potentially sell into the move.

“The Elon Candle has lifted the average age of coins spent from 30-days to 58-days, as shown in the ASOL. This behaviour slowed during the consolidation in January, and has started ramping back up this week.”

The on-chain analytics provide counted this with a bullish metric showing that miners are no longer selling as much Bitcoin which suggests they’ve made enough already to cover their expenses.

Bitcoin’s big move has reversed Monday’s correction and lifted total market capitalization back over $1.5 trillion as the altcoins are all back in the green at the time of writing.