coindesk.com
Bitcoin ($BTC) climbed above $65,000, marking a 4% increase in 24 hours, influenced by positive movements in the S&P 500 and expectations of stimulus in China.
Trading firm QCP Capital highlighted similarities between current price actions and those seen before U.S. elections in 2016 and 2020, suggesting a pattern where Bitcoin sees significant gains in the weeks leading up to the election, fueling 'Uptober' optimism.
The S&P 500 also opened at a new high, indicating a bullish market trend, which often correlates with cryptocurrency performance.
Bitcoin ($BTC) rose above $65,000 in U.S. morning trading hours Monday as the S&P 500 index opened to fresh highs, with some traders arguing that historical price patterns witnessed ahead of prior U.S. presidential elections might offer a reason to be bullish ahead of November's upcoming vote.
$BTC is up 4% in the past 24 hours, data shows, with the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid fund tracking the largest tokens, up 3.1%.
SPX rose 14.8 points, or 0.25%, at the open to 5,829.81 ahead of a week packed with corporate earnings and economic data, per Reuters.
$BTC rallied from $62,000 to $65,000 since early Asian hours Monday, liquidating over $80 million of $BTC and ether (ETH) leveraged shorts – or bets against the tokens. The early move came on renewed hopes of a future stimulus for Chinese markets, which tends to move riskier assets, including cryptocurrencies.
Trading firm QCP Capital said the move was similar to $BTC's price action in 2016 and 2020 before the U.S. elections.
“If we look back to 2016, $BTC traded in a very tight range for over 3 months," QCP traders said in a broadcast message. "It wasn't until three weeks before U.S. Election day that $BTC began its rally from $600 and finally doubling its price by the first week of January.”
“Similarly, in 2020, $BTC was stuck in a boring range for half a year and only started rallying from $11K just three weeks before U.S. Election day, reaching a high of $42K by January,” they added.
“Today's rally has definitely given the market a glimmer of hope just as Uptober optimism was fading,” the traders said, referring to October’s historically bullish seasonality.
October has only twice ended in the red since 2013 - chalking gains of as high as 60% and an average of 22% to make it the best for investor returns. However, prices have largely remained stable in the past two weeks, denting investor hopes.
The bitcoin price was around $63,330 on Sept. 30, so the largest cryptocurrency is up just a touch on a month-to-date basis.
A CoinDesk analysis has shown that most gains in October tend to come in the second half of the month – with price jumps as high as 16% generally appearing after Oct. 15.