Bitcoin advances to six-week high as new quarter sees inflows

Bitcoin climbed to a six-week high as inflows onto crypto exchanges continued at the start of October, a month that typically sees gains in the biggest token.

Smaller peers including Ether, Litecoin and Solana also rallied. The advance came as traders await the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday. The broad crypto gains stood in contrast to the mood in equities, where major benchmarks across Europe slipped on Monday, suggesting technical factors were also at play.

“There appears to have been significant buying flows, possibly driven by the start of a new accounting quarter, and the resulting moves were exacerbated by scarce week-end liquidity,” said Caroline Mauron, co-founder of digital-asset derivatives liquidity provider OrBit Markets in Singapore.

Mauron said she expects Bitcoin to keep advancing in October, with $30 000 seen as the next major resistance level. The last time Bitcoin fell in the month of October was during the 2018 bear market, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Bitcoin rose as much as 5.1% to $28 489, the highest level since August 17. The token climbed 4.1% in September, but still dropped 11% last quarter.

Inflows to exchanges of stablecoins on the Ethereum blockchain has turned positive since September 28 — an indicator that traders are lining up funds to buy digital tokens, according to data provider Nansen.

“We’ve seen increased BTC buying, especially on Coinbase, since September 28, suggesting institutional demand is rising,” said Dessislava Ianeva, a senior researcher at Kaiko. “This has spilled into altcoins” like Solana and Polygon.

The rally was also been helped by speculation the US Securities and Exchange Commission will eventually approve BlackRock’s proposed Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, even though the regulator deferred the decision last week, said Hayden Hughes, co-founder of social-trading platform Alpha Impact.

Bankman-Fried last week lost yet another bid to be released from a Brooklyn federal jail days before he goes on trial. The government claims he ran a multibillion-dollar years-long fraud at FTX. He has pleaded not guilty.

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