Bitcoin was firmly in the limelight this week after the world’s largest cryptocurrency smashed past previous records to clinch an all-time high of more than $93,000 at the mid-week point.
While Thursday saw a bout of profit-taking, the BTC/USD has pushed higher this Friday, although the $90,000 price point remains out of reach at the time of writing.
As it stands, the BTC/USD is trading at around $88,700.
Bitcoin's week-on-week performance – Credit: tradingview.com
Bitcoin’s epic week, which started with a 10% Monday rally, is being attributed to the ‘Trump trade’ phenomenon.
President-elect Donald Trump firmly positioned himself as the pro-crypto candidate of choice during his campaign, sending traders into a flurry of FOMO after he swept aside Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.
For the most part, spot-bitcoin exchange-traded fund flows had a stellar week too, causing even more buy-side activity in the market.
However, the latest ETF data suggest the ETF frenzy is cooling off.
Following six straight days of large-scale inflows, more than $400 million travelled out of the ETF space on Thursday.
While hardly enough to offset the $3 billion-plus worth of post-election inflows, it does imply that institutional demand has its limits in the face of banking profits.
Bitcoin ETF flows will be tightly watched in the weeks ahead as a bellwether of the cryptocurrency’s demand.
Dogecoin whimpers
The other big name in crypto this week, Dogecoin (DOGE), has started to see a reversal.
The meme coin, which counts Elon Musk as a die-hard fan, skyrocketed in value when it emerged that Musk will be heading the non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Obnoxious reference aside, Musk’s appointment is unlikely to change the fundamentals of Dogecoin, but meme traders will do as meme traders do, until they don’t.
In the example at hand, that means DOGE retreating from a mid-week high of $0.434 to $0.364 at the time of writing.