Bitcoin (BTC) continues to gain ground, taking bullish cues from traditional rate-sensitive assets like gold.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value rose to $30,797 during Monday’s Asian trading hours, reaching the highest since July 15, according to CoinDesk data.
Prices are up 14% for the month, with gold registering a much lesser 6.7% gain. Gold, however, picked up a bid a week before bitcoin, as the outbreak of tensions between Israel and Hamas, alongside continued speculation about the end of the Fed tightening cycle, signaled an inflationary regime ahead.
“Rates are the biggest mover in macro right now, but surprisingly, rate-sensitive assets, such as Gold, are also seeing bullish momentum… this bodes well for BTC,” Greg Magdini, director of derivatives at Amberdata, said in an email.
Magadini added that war spending is traditionally inflationary, and the Fed is simultaneously hinting about a pause in rate hikes at a time when the U.S. economy remains robust. This favors the upside in gold and BTC, considering the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) optimism.
“BTC remains an even more interesting asset, given perfect-portability, inflation hedge, and government agnostic wealth preservation. Combine the optimism around the BTC ETF and the Ripple lawsuit, and altogether, this strikes me as a very bullish development for BTC as a whole,” Magadini noted.
Analysts at Blockware Solutions voiced a similar opinion while attributing the rally to the potential approval of an exchange-traded fund that tracks the spot price of bitcoin.
“Price action is behaving quite constructively as investors seek the life raft the Bitcoin network provides in times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and speculate on the future of BTC pending an approved spot ETF,” Blockware noted.
According to Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research, the way options market makers are positioned indicates scope for an explosive move to the higher side.
Per Thorn, market makers are holding net short gamma exposure, which forces them to buy high and sell low as the market moves. They do so to adjust their overall exposure back to neutral, inadvertently adding to price volatility.
“Options market makers in bitcoin are increasingly short gamma as BTC spot price moves up. When you’re short gamma and spot px rises, you need to buy back spot to stay delta neutral. This should amplify the explosiveness of any short-term upward move in the near term,” Thorn said on X.