Bitcoin Briefly Tops $106K Before Retreating to $104K as Traders Lock in Profits

The crypto market has increased by 0.4% to $3.57 trillion over the last 24 hours but is still 1.4% below last week’s levels. Cryptocurrencies are slowly and rather erratically climbing out of the dip they fell into on Monday. The market remains sensitive to negative news but is recovering cautiously, avoiding excessive optimism.

The sentiment index on Friday reached 76 (extreme greed)—the highest level in the last two and a half weeks. Although the absence of clearly expressed FOMO may not please the bulls, who were hoping for a quick profit like previous bullish cycles, such an ascent is often more sustainable in traditional markets.

On Thursday, Bitcoin exceeded the level of $106,000, but by Friday, it once again rolled back closer to $104,000. This decline indicates the caution of players approaching historical highs. It seems that many prefer to fix profits near the peaks over the last few weeks.

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BTC was pressured by miners selling 20,000 BTC (~$2 billion) in mid-January. Holders sold about 75,000 BTC (~$7.5 billion) over the past week, according to Martinez.

Glassnode notes a slowdown in BTC sales by long-term investors. CryptoQuant notes that leverage in bitcoin derivatives has not reached the extreme values observed during the 2021 rally.

According to Bitwise, following historical patterns, Bitcoin is expected to exceed $200,000 in 2025 due to demand for BTC-ETF and asset purchases by corporations and governments of certain countries.

At the end of the fourth quarter of last year, Tesla made a “paper” profit of $589 million from retained bitcoins. As a result, the net profit for the period amounted to $2.3 billion and $7.1 billion for 2024 overall. According to Arkham Intelligence, Tesla holds 11,509 BTC (~$1.21 billion).

The Salvadoran parliament quickly approved a bill to amend the country’s bitcoin strategy, according to agreements with the IMF, from which El Salvador will receive a $1.4 billion loan. Currently, the country holds 6,049 BTC ($635 million).

by FxPro’s Senior Market Analyst Alex Kuptsikevich