Bitcoin Price Revisits ATH as U.S. Government Shutdown Enters Day 3

Bitcoin (BTC) price extended its recent gains on Friday to almost retest its all-time high (ATH) around $124,128. The flagship coin gained around 3% on Friday to reach a range high of about $123,855, 1.3% shy of its ATH, before retracing to trade about $122k at press time.

Bitcoin Price Gains on High-Leveraged Market

The Bitcoin price has benefited from heightened demand in futures leveraged market trading. According to market data analysis from CoinGlass, Bitcoin’s Open Interest (OI) and volume have gained gradually since the September 28 BTC price rebound.

Precisely, BTC’s OI surged during the past two days to its ATH of about $88.52 billion at press time. Meanwhile, BTC’s OI-Weighted Funding Rate has remained positive in the last two weeks, signaling bullish sentiment.

The rising demand from leveraged trading has resulted in high crypto liquidations. During the last 24 hours, a total of $549 million was liquidated from crypto leveraged markets, with the majority involving short traders. Bitcoin accounted for $238 million, with over $179 million involving short traders.

U.S. Government Shutdown Bolsters BTC Gains

The Bitcoin and wider crypto market have largely benefited from the ongoing U.S. government shutdown. The Congress deadlock entered its 3rd day, Bitcoin followed Gold in a bullish outlook as more investors turned risk-on trading strategy.

Nevertheless, the lack of crucial economic data, which will influence upcoming Fed rate decisions, has created midterm uncertainty.

Bigger Market Picture

The ongoing Bitcoin rebound has followed an expected bull run in the fourth quarter. On-chain data analysis shows institutional investors have accelerated their BTC accumulation to hedge against inflation and market uncertainty. 

For instance, enterprises using Bitcoin as a treasury have increased by 27 in the past 20 days to 343, and currently hold 3.87 million BTC according to data analysis from BitcoinTreasuries. The U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF issuers have recorded a net cash inflow of about $1.35 billion since the beginning of October.