On Wednesday (October 16), after Bitcoin failed to successfully break through the key resistance level of $68,000, the crypto market staged a fierce drama of "long and short explosions" in contracts, and then rebounded to the $67,300 level to take a breather. Billionaire Elon Musk's Tesla transferred $770 million in Bitcoin reserves to multiple new addresses, triggering a panic of dumping. The World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token of the family of former US President Donald Trump was officially sold publicly, stimulating its winning rate in November to soar to 57.5%.
Tesla recovers after 2 years, transfers $770 million in Bitcoin reserves
According to The Block, citing on-chain data from analysis firm Arkham Research, Tesla, the electric car giant run by Musk, has transferred all 11,509 bitcoins worth approximately $770 million to seven new addresses. This appears to be the company's entire remaining bitcoin reserves, having invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in February 2021.
(Source: Arkham)
(Source: Arkham)
The transfer of these tokens follows six test transactions by Tesla, the first time Tesla has interacted with its Bitcoin wallet since it sold most of its assets in 2022. It is unclear why the company is moving Bitcoin after more than two years of inactivity, but some suspect it may be preparing to sell more Bitcoin.
As of Tuesday, Tesla's holdings of bitcoin were estimated at 9,720, worth about $650 million, far below its peak of 43,000. However, Arkham believes that Tesla holds a total of 11,509 bitcoins in 68 addresses, worth about $770 million at current prices.
Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, which is set to report third-quarter financial results after the market closes on Oct. 23, holds an additional 8,285 bitcoins, according to BitcoinTreasuries estimates.
Trump family WLFI token public sale, more than 665 million tokens traded in one day
The World Liberty Financial token WLFI, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project supported by the Trump family, has officially launched. Data shows that the token sale started at 20:40 Beijing time on Tuesday, and more than 220 million WLFI tokens were sold in the first 20 minutes.
World Liberty Financial was co-founded by Steve and Zach Witkoff, Folkman and Chase Herro. Most notably, the company has named Trump its chief cryptocurrency advocate and his three sons — Trump Jr., Eric and Barron — as Web3 ambassadors.
“Breaking news, the WLFI Token Sale is now live,” Trump said in a Twitter post on Tuesday. “Cryptocurrencies are the future, let’s embrace this incredible technology and lead the world’s digital economy.”
According to the project team, WLFI will serve as the governance token of the platform, through which users can participate in DeFi activities such as lending. The project plans to raise $300 million with a valuation of $1.5 billion.
The WLFI sale raised $5 million in the first hour, however, the WLFI official website experienced intermittent downtime during the pre-sale, resulting in token purchases being unavailable in the last 8 minutes.
As of Wednesday's Asian session, WLFI had traded nearly 660 million coins during the day, but was far from the final sales target of 20 billion coins.
(Source: World Liberty Financial official website)
According to data from Polymarket, a large cryptocurrency betting platform, Trump's chances of winning in November have reached 57.6%, returning to the peak when the current US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the election. Vice President Kamala Harris's chances of winning have fallen to 42.1%. Although he has recently expressed support for cryptocurrencies, his actions seem to lag behind Trump.
Bitcoin Technical Analysis
Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, mentioned that the apparent demand for Bitcoin is starting to increase. He said that Bitcoin apparent demand is a key indicator determined by the difference between new supply (mining issuance) and changes in long-term holdings (supply that has been inactive for more than a year).
(Source: CryptoQuant)
If the supply of Bitcoin shrinks more than production, it would suggest that demand is rising as more Bitcoin is introduced into circulation. Conversely, if the change in production exceeds the change in supply, demand could be weakening.
Historically, Bitcoin’s apparent demand has increased before each major rally since 2016. Current apparent demand reflects February 2024 levels, before Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $73,800 in March.
Axel Adler Jr, an on-chain Bitcoin researcher, highlighted a similar trend among investors, saying in a post: “Demand for token purchases from new investors has recovered, growing 3% over the past 10 days, which is a positive sign for the market.”
(Source: CryptoQuant)
Coinbase (US) and Kimchi premium (South Korea) also showed positive growth trends, indicating that retail investors began to bid for Bitcoin. The increase in Coinbase premium indicates buying pressure in the US retail market, while the Kimchi premium indicates buying pressure from South Korean retail investors.
(Source: CryptoQuant)
However, it is worth noting that the overall premium of these two indices is still negative. On-chain analyst Hansolar mentioned that before the exponential rise in Bitcoin prices, exchanges offered Bitcoin prices at a “discount price” and this particular period of the market can be regarded as an “incredible” rebound.
While spot demand for Bitcoin has improved over the past few days, the recent rally can be largely attributed to the derivatives market. Last week, open interest in Bitcoin increased by $800 million over the weekend, as the price of Bitcoin rose to $64,500. As the week progressed, the price quickly reversed and formed lows below $60,000.
(Source: CryptoQuant)
A similar situation occurred this weekend, with prices rising 10% since October 11, but at the same time, open interest has risen by nearly 18%. In light of this development, market analyst Maartunn expressed caution, believing that last week's decline was also triggered by "excessive leverage."
In addition, Capriole Investments' Bitcoin Heater chart also shows a similar outlook for the futures market. As shown in the figure below, the indicator is currently exceeding the 2024 overheating threshold (red line) for the first time. High values indicate greed (bearish) and over-leverage, which means that the leveraged market needs to reset soon.
