In a surprising turn of events, an unidentified user has amassed more than an eye-watering $3 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) in the last three months amidst the ongoing prolonged crypto winter, sparking a wave of theories about the potential owner.
Bitcoin (BTC) kicked off the New Year on a boisterous note, climbing 55% in the first half of 2023, a remarkable turnaround after shedding a massive chunk in the bloodbath of 2022. In April, the largest digital token hit a high of $31,035, gaining almost 83% year-to-date (YTD). However, since April, Bitcoin has traded sideways and downward between $27,000 and $30,000, experiencing a bearish correction over the past months.
Furthermore, the flagship token along with the broader crypto market suffered another blow last week, in the wake of several headwinds such as crumbling foreign currencies, Chinese economic worries, Elon Musk’s SpaceX selling its entire BTC holdings of $373 million, and bond yields surging to multi-year highs.
Mysterious Entity Gathers Over $3B Worth of BTC
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is up 0.19% in the last 24 hours to hover around $26,097. Meanwhile, over the past seven days, the digital token is still down more than 11%. Despite the ongoing market jitters, a mysterious Bitcoin (BTC) wallet has accumulated more than $3 billion worth of BTC tokens in the last three months, becoming the third-largest holder of the OG cryptocurrency.
As per the data from the crypto statistics platform BitInfoCharts, the wallet address first received BTC on March 8. Over the course of the next three months and two weeks, the wallet had collected a staggering 118,000 BTC, approximately worth $3.08 billion at current prices.
This dramatic episode has given rise to various speculations from the crypto community with some users suggesting it is most likely a crypto exchange moving funds, while others proposed that BlackRock is the “prime suspect”, accumulating the digital token in anticipation of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF).
Bitcoin Hashprice Plunges to All-time Low
This comes at a time when Bitcoin’s hash price tumbled to an unprecedented low. According to Checkmate, the lead on-chain analyst at Glassnode, Bitcoin (BTC) network hash rate has reached a commendable level of 429.72M Terahashes/second (TH/s).
This represents a 1.85% increase just from yesterday when it stood at 421.91M TH/s. Hashprice is a Bitcoin mining metric that represents the miner revenue on a per terahash basis.
Global Firms Anticipate BTC to Hit the Moon
Additionally, traders are also closely monitoring the upcoming US data and comments from Fed policymakers, including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday, which could potentially push US government bond yields to new multi-decade highs. This could negatively affect both the crypto and US stock markets.
Given September is not a great month for risk-on assets globally, it seems Bitcoin (BTC) can trade at these levels in the upcoming weeks before gaining momentum. Several market experts are also betting big on the bellwether token with many firms predicting making bold predictions.
Recently, market strategy and research firm, Fundstrat, claimed the price of Bitcoin (BTC) will zoom past $150,000 by the end of 2024 if the string of spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETF) gets approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Previously, analysts at Standard Chartered had also noted the OG cryptocurrency could reach $50,000 this year and $120,000 by the end of 2024. While other analysts have suggested that a $100,000 Bitcoin price could come much sooner than expected. Recently, Blockstream CEO Adam Back asserted the digital token will notch the new price milestone the month before the halving event, due to occur on April 16, 2024.
