As Bitcoin (BTC) price tested the $17,580 low on Dec. 11, investors remained relatively calm despite some analysts issuing bearish estimates. Concluding week'south trading may have finished at the same level where it started, only the fundamentals for Bitcoin have become fifty-fifty stronger.

BTC/USD 4-hr nautical chart. Source: TradingView

Each time Bitcoin makes a new high, investors expect some form of correction. Despite failing to intermission through the $24,000 resistance, the price quickly bounced from its sub- $22,000 dip on Dec. 21. This event might have given sellers some hope, but looking nether the hood, there is not a single sign of weakness sign.

In the past week, Bitcoin authority continued to gain as it climbed from 64.3% to 67.three%. This motion was aided by the Dubai-based financial advisory firm deVere Group's $46,000 prediction for 2021. Moreover, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) surpassed $one.3 billion of futures contracts. This creates indisputable evidence of the growing institutional participation in BTC markets.

This news appears to take given farther confidence to investors, causing Bitcoin to reach a new $24,300 best high on Dec. 20.

Top-16 cryptocurrencies weekly performance. Source: Nomics & CoinMarketCap

In the past week, Bitcoin outperformed the meridian-15 altcoins, which climbed 7.vii% on boilerplate. More importantly, the book from altcoins has been disappointing compared to Bitcoin'south 50% increment. This indicator strengthens the recent dominance performance, as does BTC establishing $22,500 as a new support.

Institutional investors accumulate while Bitcoin price consolidates

Crypto fund managing director Grayscale Investments also connected to aggressively add BTC to their portfolio which at present contains $13.3 billion in Bitcoin.

Grayscale Investments BTC holdings. Source: bybt.com

Over the past week, 11,620 BTC were added, totaling 576,650 BTC. Therefore, information technology was another excellent calendar week for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Similar excitement can exist seen by analyzing the fund's premium over the effective BTC held by each share, which currently sits at 0.00095064 BTC.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust premium. Source: TradingView and Grayscale

As shown above, the premium increased from 18% to 40% in the by seven days. This extraordinary level can be partially explained by a temporary pause of new shares being issued.

Albeit unusual, a similar move occurred six months ago. By halting the offering to institutional clients, any additional demand needs to exist met by secondary sales, thus creating force per unit area for a larger premium.

Perpetual futures funding is belongings steady

Perpetual contracts, also known as inverse swaps, take an embedded rate that is normally charged every eight hours. Funding rates ensure there are no substitution risk imbalances. Fifty-fifty though both buyers and sellers' open involvement is matched at all times, the leverage tin can vary.

When buyers (longs) are the ones demanding more leverage, the funding rate turns positive. Therefore, the buyers will be the ones paying upward the fees. This upshot holds especially true during balderdash runs, when there is usually more need for longs.

Sustainable rates above ii% per calendar week translate to extreme optimism. This level is acceptable during market rallies merely problematic if the BTC price is sideways or in a downtrend.

In situations like these, loftier leverage from buyers increases the likelihood of large liquidations when the price drops abruptly.

BTC perpetual futures funding rates. Source: Digital Avails Data

Have detect how, despite Bitcoin's weakness on Dec. 21, the weekly funding rate managed to avoid the negative territory. This information indicates that both brusque (sell) and long (buy) traders use roughly the same leverage.

This is a neutral reading, equally both sides have powder left to increase their bets.

Social network activity peaked

BTC Twitter user activity vs. USD price. Source: TheTie

Data from TheTie likewise shows that a recent BTC price increase occurred while tweets related to 'Bitcoin' reached the highest level seen since December. 2017. Despite the contempo correction on the social activeness indicator, the current level remains 10% higher than the previous calendar month.

While a significant bump in Twitter activeness does not necessarily equal vigorous retail buying information technology certainly helps to gather more than attention as the cryptocurrency continues its uptrend.

Options put-to-call ratio

The all-time way to estimate overall marketplace sentiment is to measure whether more action is going through call (buy) options or put (sell) options. Mostly speaking, telephone call options are used for bullish strategies, whereas put options are for bearish ones.

A 0.lxx put-to-call ratio indicates that put options open up involvement lag the more bullish calls past thirty% and is therefore bullish.

In contrast, a one.xx indicator favors put options by xx%, which tin can exist deemed bearish. Ane matter to annotation is that the metric aggregates the unabridged BTC options market, including all calendar months.

BTC options put-to-telephone call ratio. Source: Cryptorank.io

As Bitcoin cost broke $20,000, investors rushed to seek downside protection. As a result, the put-to-call ratio peaked at 1.08 on December. 19. The very unusual level favoring the more neutral-to-bearish strategies reverted soon after, every bit the indicator returned to 0.lx.

This shows that investors optimism was not harmed by the x% toll correction that followed the $24,200 best high.

Bitcoin is holding $22,500 while traders remain optimistic

Overall, each of the indicators discussed have quickly returned to a neutral-to-bullish range and this relatively positive given that the market place recently tested a $21,910 low.

As BTC holds above $22,500, investors are chop-chop regaining their conviction whilend the consistent bounces back from each dip are a positive sign.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the autho r and practice not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading motion involves take a chance. You lot should bear your own research when making a conclusion.