Bloomberg: Bitcoin advances to six-week high as new quarter sees inflows

Bitcoin climbed to a six-week high as inflows picked up at the start of October, a month that has typically seen gains in the token.

Smaller peers including Ether, Litecoin and Solana also rallied. The advance came as traders await the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, which is scheduled to begin on October 3, Bloomberg reports.

“There appears to have been significant buying flows, possibly driven by the start of a new accounting quarter, and the resulting moves were exacerbated by scarce week-end liquidity,” said Caroline Mauron, co-founder of digital-asset derivatives liquidity provider OrBit Markets in Singapore.

The rally is expected to continue in October, typically a positive month for crypto markets, with $30,000 seen as the next major resistance level for Bitcoin, she said.

Bitcoin rose as much as 3.9% to $28,173, the highest level since Aug. 17. The token climbed 4.1% in September, but still dropped 11% last quarter. Bitcoin has gained in October in each of the past four years.

The rally was also been helped by speculation the US Securities and Exchange Commission will eventually approve BlackRock Inc.’s Bitcoin ETF proposals, even though the regulator deferred the decision last week, said Hayden Hughes, co-founder of social-trading platform Alpha Impact.

Bankman-Fried last week lost yet another bid to be released from a Brooklyn federal jail days before he goes on trial. The government claims he ran a multibillion-dollar years-long fraud at FTX. He has pleaded not guilty.

A wallet linked to FTX that was hacked last November saw some activity for the first time in nearly a year, with more than $4 million of Ether tokens being moved, CoinDesk reported.