Bitcoin (BTC), which had traded in a tight range for most of Wednesday, suddenly surged toward $100,000 during the U.S. afternoon, nearing a milestone price that it’s been unable to bust through for weeks.

After briefly dipping below $95,000 around midday, BTC later jumped nearly 5%, hitting a $99,177 session high, CoinDesk data shows. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was up 3.2% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index‘s 1.3% gain.

The price action happened as the so-called “Coinbase Premium,” a key metric to gauge BTC demand among U.S. investors, spiked to rarely seen highs.

TradingView data shows that BTC was at times over $300 pricier on Coinbase relative to Binance during the price surge, suggesting that the rally was perhaps driven by strong demand by American market participants.

The Coinbase Premium measures the price difference for spot BTC on Coinbase, widely used by U.S. customers and many institutional market participants, compared to prices on offshore Binance, the leading exchange by trading volume that’s popular among retail users.

Go to Source to See Full Article
Author: Krisztian Sandor