Bitcoin trades just 2% below the all-time high; What drives BTC price?

Bitcoin price came within a hair's width of recapturing its all-time high on Tuesday, March 5 2024. The BTC price rose rapidly from an opening of about $68,230 to set an intra-day high at $68,734 on Binance, only $266 away from the $69,000 all-time high set in November 2021.

Institutional appetite continues to drive BTC higher even with reports emerging that Stanford University's Blyth Fund has bought Bitcoin making up approximately 7% of its portfolio. The reports first emerged in X social media platform on March 4 in a post shared by Kole Lee who said "In February, pitched IBIT to Blyth Fund, the student-run fund which manages a portion of Stanford's Endowment."

Further catalysts come from the largest corporate BTC holder, MicroStrategy, which has announced a proposed private offering of $600 million of convertible senior notes.

Executive chairman and former CEO Michael Saylor revealed in a March 4 post on X the business intelligence firm's intention to stash away more Bitcoin after proposing a private offering of $600 million of convertible senior notes.

It is worth noting that there is no telling whether the offering will be completed as the offering is under the mercy of market conditions and other factors.

Moreover, spot Bitcoin ETFs continued to see increased capital inflows with the total assets under management crossing the $50 billion mark on March 5, according to data from Coinglass.

Senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg saw this coming on Monday when he pointed out Fidelity Bitcoin ETF's FBTC over $404 million inflows.

The total tally of inflows into spot BTC ETFs came in at $164.6 million according to data from Farside Investors. The outflows from Grayscale's GBTC continued with $368 million leaving the ETF on March. 4.

According to Balchunas, the Bitcoin ETFs are "more than halfway to passing gold ETFs" in less than two months since their debut on January 11.

Bitcoin seeks a return to all-time highs

BTC broke through the upper boundary of a supply zone stretching from $62,647 to $65,965 set in November 2021, coming within an inch close to the $69,000 all-time high. If Bitcoin manages to return to today's intraday high and produce a decisive daily candlestick close above it, it would continue rising toward the$69,000, bringing $70,000 into focus.

BTC/USD daily chart

This positive outlook for BTC is supported by the position of the RSI in the positive region. The price strength at 77 indicates that the buyers are currently dominating the market.

On the downside, the RSI is turning down, a suggestion that the bears could be booking profits on the latest rally above $68,000, hence the bearish bias on the daily chart.

Independent analyst Ali noticed that the TD sequential indicator had sent a sell signal on the four hour chart and that everytime the "indicator" suggested selling," in the recent past "the price of $BTC dropped by 1.5% to 4.7%."

As such, if the current correction continues, Bitcoin may drop to areas between $65,500 and $62,650 in the short term.