This January, the price of the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin ($BTC) had its best January in a decade, rising nearly 40% from its lows. In addition, it’s the most significant month since October 2021, when $BTC gained 40%.
According to market statistics, the flagship cryptocurrency’s price is about $23,083, after closing January at approximately $23,000, its highest level since August last year.
According to Yahoo Finance, the market began January with “some dramatic price activity the week following December’s CPI [consumer price index] data,” according to Christopher Newhouse, an options trader at cryptocurrency market maker GSR. According to the analyst, institutional investors bought more in the first two weeks of the year, which caused short-sellers to sell their shares.
In the 12 days after December’s inflation report, which came out on January 12, more than $1.3 billion in short bets against the leading cryptocurrency were closed. This left around $611 million in net long holdings. However, according to the news source, the opposite has happened in the last week, and $331 million in long bets have been cashed out.
Analysts think that Bitcoin’s next move will come after this week’s decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by 25 basis points. This is part of the Fed’s plan to fight inflation.
CryptoGlobe says that leading cryptocurrency expert Peter Brandt, who gained a lot of social media followers in January 2018 when he correctly predicted Bitcoin’s 84% drop over the year, has said that $BTC has recently given a “very unusual” positive signal.
For the first time in over a year, Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index, which measures investor confidence and attitude toward the market, surged to “greed” in January.
The index, which uses social media and other sources to make a relative number that shows how investors feel, has increased from 6 when BTC fell below $18,000 last year. The index says that the way people act in the bitcoin market is “extremely emotional” and that people “get greedy when the market is going up, which causes FOMO (fear of missing out).”
