Institutions are thrilled that you’re selling, suggests OKCoin COO

A number of mainstream companies have picked up massive piles of Bitcoin (BTC) since summer 2020. Meanwhile, the asset surged past its 2017 record high near $20,000, recently cracking $34,000 before pulling back toward $27,700. The dip, however, has created some serious buying pressure, according to OKCoin’s chief operating officer, Jason Lau.

"Over the weekend, as Bitcoin prices hit fresh all time highs near $34k, markets touched new levels of resistance,” Lau told Cointelegraph. “Both total crypto market cap and bitcoin dominance reached 2017 highs, at around $800B and 73% respectively,” he noted, adding:

“Profit taking occurred around these levels, resulting in some sideways trading, and causing many to be over leveraged long on futures. We saw $1.4B in BTC and $500M in ETH futures liquidated in the last 24hrs, resulting in a sharp dip to the $29,500 level for Bitcoin. However, these dips are being bought up pretty quickly, reinforcing the narrative that there are underlying bids by institutions keen to access bitcoin.”

Last year kicked off a trend of large mainstream players — including MicroStrategy, MassMutual and Paul Tudor Jones — allocating massive sums of capital toward Bitcoin. The public can thank this institutional uptake for Bitcoin’s recent rally, according to comments from crypto bull and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz.

“In addition, we saw rotation out of BTC during this period, as traders rotated assets from BTC into alts to gain higher returns,” Lau explained of Bitcoin’s recent price action. “This is evident as Ethereum gained 13% over bitcoin in the last 24hrs, while bitcoin dominance fell to 69%.”

Ether (ETH) recently flew up past $1,000 as part of a sizable move that outpaced Bitcoin in the short term.