Bullish Bitcoin Market Easily Digests Spike in Trading Volume

Trading volume in the bitcoin-tether trading pair on the OKEx crypto exchange reached more than 10,000 BTC in a span of two hours – at least $620 million worth based on the current price.

AccessTimeIconOct 19, 2021 at 12:36 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 6:33 p.m. UTC
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Bitcoin market sentiment appears quite bullish as evidenced from the quick absorption of a huge sell order on crypto exchange OKEx during Asian daytime trading hours on Tuesday.

Volume spiked on trades between bitcoin (BTC) and the stablecoin tether (USDT) on the cryptocurrency exchange OKEx between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. UTC, according to data from TradingView.

From 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., the trading volume totaled 5,929 BTC on the exchange, and it reached 4,049 BTC from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., the data showed. The total of more than 10,000 BTC works out to at least $620 million based on the cryptocurrency’s latest price.

Hourly volume chart (TradingView)

The crypto industry blogger Colin Wu tweeted Tuesday that “there is a view that it seems that there was a pending sell order of about 14,000 BTC in the BTC/USDT trading pair on OKEx, but it was subsequently eaten by the buy order.”

When asked to comment on the trades, an exchange spokesperson sent the following, attributed to Lennix Lai, director of OKEx: “We see this as a healthy development within the market and do not currently notice any abnormalities.”

Jason Deane, analyst at Quantum Economics, said the quick digestion of the elevated trading volume might demonstrate the asset’s high global liquidity.

“The fact that such a significant order was apparently absorbed by prevailing trader buying activity is an indication of the underlying strength and bullish bias of the bitcoin market currently,” Deane added.

At press time, bitcoin was trading at $62,079, up 11% over the last week, according to CoinDesk 20 data.

The observed market action came as all eyes were on bitcoin Tuesday ahead of the planned launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the industry’s first-ever bitcoin futures-focused exchange-traded fund to be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

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Lyllah Ledesma

Lyllah Ledesma is a CoinDesk Markets reporter currently based in Europe. She holds bitcoin, ether and small amounts of other crypto assets.


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