Bitcoin is still struggling below $17,000 and centralized exchange inflows and inflows appear to reflect the digital asset’s trend. Over the past 24 hours, exchange net flows saw a near balance between inflows and outflows.
Balancing each other
The net exchange flows reported by Glassnode hardly show any difference between the amounts flowing in and out of the exchanges. For bitcoin, it recorded $538.6 million in BTC flowing into exchanges and $557.4 million flowing out for the same period. This brought net flows in the 24-hour period to a measly negative $18.8 million.
Ethereum was not much different in this regard with $247.8 million in inflows and $245 million in outflows. For the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, net flows amounted to a positive $2.8 million, showing even less disparity compared to bitcoin.
The USDT stablecoin issued by Tether was still very muted in this regard. The $563.6 million in outflows compared to $572.8 million in inflows brought net flows to a positive $9.2 million. More inequality compared to ethereum, but just as muted.
📊 Daily on-chain exchange flow#Bitcoin $BTC
➡️ $538.6 million in
⬅️ $557.4 million out
📉 Net Flow:- $18.8 million#Ethereum $ETH
➡️ $247.8 million in
⬅️ $245.0 million out
📈 Net Flow: + $2.8 million#Tether (ERC20) $USDT
➡️ $572.8 million in
⬅️ $563.6 million out
📈 Net Flow: +$9.2 millionhttps://t.co/dk2HbGwhVw— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) December 22, 2022
What this means for Bitcoin
With the FUD around the Binance crypto exchange already losing momentum, there isn’t much that can cause large inflows or outflows all at once. This is why these top assets are seeing nearly identical net flows. The market is still reeling from the contagion of the FTX collapse and traders and investors alike are refusing to take big bets.
The impact of this is that the price of bitcoin has not seen any meaningful movement. While it continues to hold its critical support level above $16,500, there hasn’t been much momentum to retest the $17,000 resistance level.
BTC falls below $16,700 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Investor sentiment also remains stable around 28 on the Fear & Greed Index, lifting investors out of the misery of extreme fear, but also keeping just enough caution in the market to avoid panic buying or selling.
If momentum does not pick up, reduced trading volume around the holiday season could push bitcoin below the $16,000 level for the next two weeks. If this happens, the digital asset could end the month of December in the red.
BTC is changing hands at $16,690 at the time of writing. It is down 4.94% in the last 7 days and 0.23% in the last 24 hours.
Featured image of Vauld, chart from TradingView.com