Bitcoin surges to $43k amid declining whale activity

After surpassing the $44,000 mark last week, Bitcoin (BTC) witnessed a sharp decline to a local low of around $40,700 on Dec. 12. However, the flagship cryptocurrency has gained momentum again.

Bitcoin is up by 5.1% in the past 24 hours and is trading at around $42,950 at the time of writing. The asset’s market cap witnessed a $37 billion surge over the past day and is currently standing at over $840 billion.

BTC’s price rally comes as the broader crypto market gained bullish momentum after a sharp decline on Dec. 12. According to data provided by CoinGecko, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization surged by almost $80 billion over the past 24 hours, about at $1.685 trillion at reporting time. 

Moreover, data from the market intelligence platform Santiment shows that Bitcoin’s whale activity has been consistently declining since Dec. 11. Per Santiment, the number of whale transactions consisting of at least $100,000 worth of BTC dropped by 6.1% over the past day — currently standing at 10,215 unique daily transactions.

When an asset’s whale activity declines, lower price volatility is usually expected.

After seeing an $850 million decline in its total open interest (OI), Bitcoin’s OI registered a 4.5% hike in the past 24 hours — rising from $7.31 billion to $7.63 billion — according to Santiment.

While the declining Bitcoin whale activity shows positive momentum, the asset’s Relative Strength Index (RSI), per Santiment, rose from 67 to 70. When the RSI indicator drops, it indicates the possibility of an incoming price increase and vice versa.