Why is Bitcoin pumping in 2023? – BitTalk #4

On the latest episode of the cryptocurrency podcast “BitTalk,” hosts Akiba, James, and Nick discussed the recent surge in the value of Bitcoin. Despite many experts in the field predicting a dull year for the cryptocurrency, with a focus on building and the price hovering between $12,000 and $20,000, the value of Bitcoin unexpectedly shot up last week.

Nick, one of the hosts, stated that he had no idea what was happening and that the consensus among those in the space was that it would be a dull year for the price of Bitcoin. He theorized that there may have been an incentive for certain players to push the price up to liquidate short positions, but it was just his opinion.

Akiba shared an article he had written about the current sentiment for Bitcoin. He discussed the Fear and Greed Index, which went from extreme fear to neutral within seven days and shared a graph of the search traffic for Bitcoin over the last five years. He noted that the current interest in Bitcoin is at the same level as it was at the end of 2020, with the highest interest coming from Nigeria and El Salvador. He also added that the search volume for the following highest country, the Netherlands, is half of the search volume in terms of numbers and that the positive sentiment for Bitcoin references across blogs, YouTube videos, and news articles had a bit of a pump in terms of its sentiment, but not massively.

James shared his thoughts on the matter from a technical perspective. He discussed that on Friday, the 13th, most coins left exchanges since the beginning of December, around $200 million and that it was primarily from finance. He also broke down the withdrawal amount and showed that it was mainly from retail and institutional players.

The hosts also discussed how the pump was strange because there was no clear catalyst. They also talked about how traditional finance is going to spill over to the crypto market and how the spillover where traditional finance was so worried about crypto spilling over into them, traditional finance is going to spill over to crypto. They also discussed the bank of Japan and the real estate market and how it’s on a knife edge. They also discussed the amount of capital in the world that doesn’t know where to go and how Bitcoin always makes sense as an investment. Finally, they discussed the possibility of an ETF for Bitcoin and whether it makes sense for the market.

Overall, the hosts of “BitTalk” provided insightful commentary on the…