Bitcoin: As demand soars, will BTC prices rush past 2024 predictions

Journalist

Posted: December 24, 2023

• There has been a growth in new demand for BTC in the last two weeks.
• Price volatility has started to decline.

The past ten days have witnessed a remarkable surge in the number of addresses holding Bitcoin [BTC]. 

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), on-chain data provider Santiment noted that the total number of addresses with non-zero BTC balances has now surpassed 910 million, having grown by 2% in the last two weeks.

📈 #Bitcoin‘s amount of wallets holding >0 coins is up to 916.75M, which is a +1.8% increase in just a 10 day span. Other top cap assets, including #stablecoins like #Tether and #USDCoin, are also seeing an increased rate of growth as a result of this

(Cont) 👇 pic.twitter.com/gmi52Jijsf

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 22, 2023

According to the data provider, the total amount of BTC holders now sits above 50 million, growing by 8% since the market rally began in October. 

Source: Santiment

While the increased demand for BTC  in the past ten days by addresses that previously held no coin might suggest growing mainstream adoption, Santiment warned of the need to remain cautious. 

The data provider said,

“Though network growth is a great sign long-term, this rapid rate of new wallets is a FOMO sign to be slightly cautious of.”

This suggests that the new entrants might be paper hands looking to cash in quick gains on BTC’s current rally.

BTC in the last week

Trading at $43,595 at press time, BTC’s price has grown by almost 5% in the last week, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

In addition to the surge in new demand for the leading coin, the BTC market has recorded a widespread uptick in the total number of unique active addresses involved in BTC transactions in the past week. 

According to data from CryptoQuant, as of 22nd December, BTC recorded a daily active address count of 1.23 million. In the past seven days, this has increased by 10%. 

Source: CryptoQuant

On the same day, the coin’s price rallied above the $44,000 price mark. The last time BTC traded at this price level was 5th December. Due to the price surge, there was a minor uptick in the amount of BTC sent to exchanges on that day.

As some traders sold their coins to benefit from the rally, BTC’s exchange reserve climbed by 0.01%. At press time, 2.02 million BTC were held in crypto exchanges. 

Interestingly, despite the recent price surge and attendant coin distribution, volatility in the BTC market continues to decline. 

Readings from the coin’s Bollinger Bands (BB) revealed a narrowing gap between the upper and lower bands of the indicator. When a coin’s BB indicator narrows in this manner, it indicates that volatility is decreasing

Likewise, the coin’s Average True Range (ATR) which measures market volatility by calculating the average range between high and low prices over a specified number of periods – has fallen by 9% in the last week.

Source: BTC/USDT on TradingView