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BTC Surges to $37K After Elon Musk Adds 'Bitcoin' to Twitter Bio
Is Musk just teasing the crypto community again?
Bitcoin witnessed a sudden double-digit spike to 10-day highs on Friday.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
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The top cryptocurrency picked up a bid near $32,000 at around 08:30 UTC and jumped to $37,050, the highest level since Jan. 19, according to CoinDesk 20 data. The 15.7% rise happened in less than 15 minutes and more than reversed the early dip from $34,400 to $32,000.
While the exact reason for the bullish move is hard to define, prices surged after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk changed his Twitter bio to mention the cryptocurrency. While the bitcoin community is keen for Musk to come out as a supporter, he seemingly enjoys dropping crypto mentions as something of a tease.
Around the time he changed the bio, Musk also cryptically tweeted:
In retrospect, it was inevitable
— Name (@elonmusk) January 29, 2021
Whether bitcoin's rise will continue isn't certain. Blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant's "Exchange Whale Ratio," calculated by dividing the top 10 bitcoin inflow transactions in an hour by total exchange inflows, jumped to an eight-month high of 0.88 early Friday, warning of a possible price drop.
However, "Elon's tweet overrides all other bearish signals," Ki-Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant tweeted.
Documenting Musk's ostensible nod to the leading cryptocurrency, F2Pool, currently the largest mining pool by hashrate, embedded the tech mogul's latest tweet in Bitcoin block 668,197. "We wanted to do something special for the bitcoin community," a spokesperson from the mining pool told CoinDesk after mining the block.
Other bitcoin users planted the tweet on the blockchain too, like Zakk Lakin, technical lead at bitcoin exchange CoinCorner, who planted Musk's tweet in a single bitcoin transaction on Friday.
Reflecting Musk's huge social media influence, Google searches for "bitcoin" surged following his bio change.
The latest price rise marks an upward break of the recent $30,000 to $35,000 trading range. As such, more chart-driven buying may be seen. The cryptocurrency is currently trading near $36,100.
See also: Coinbase to Become Publicly Traded, Announces Proposed Direct Listing of Shares
Update (Jan. 29, 14:24 UTC): Adds information about embedding Musk's latest tweet on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Omkar Godbole
Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor on CoinDesk's Markets team based in Mumbai, holds a masters degree in Finance and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) member. Omkar previously worked at FXStreet, writing research on currency markets and as fundamental analyst at currency and commodities desk at Mumbai-based brokerage houses. Omkar holds small amounts of bitcoin, ether, BitTorrent, tron and dot.
Zack Voell
Zack Voell is a financial writer with extensive experience in cryptocurrency research and technical writing. He has previously worked with leading cryptocurrency data and technology firms, including Messari and Blockstream. His work (and tweets) has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Independent and more. He owns bitcoin.
