First Mover: As Bitcoin Shoots Past $18K, There's Comfort in the Crowded Trade

1) It's hard to argue that "Long bitcoin" is particularly crowded right now, given how many big investors have yet to assert that the trade has any merit at all.

According Mati Greenspan, founder of the foreign exchange and cryptocurrency research firm Quantum Economics, price-chart patterns suggest that bitcoin was "Due for a pullback a long time ago."

Bitcoin shot past $17,000 Tuesday, and then $18,000 early Wednesday, rising to levels not seen in three years and with prices up more than 150% year to date.

Few big banks have made a serious push into cryptocurrencies, but Germany's Deutsche Bank has described bitcoin as the world's best-performing asset in 2021.

Open interest in bitcoin futures has climbed to above $6 billion from $4 billion as recently as October, according to the data firm Skew.

4) The number of active bitcoin addresses recently climbed to about 1.2 million, but that's still a touch below levels witnessed during bitcoin's bull run of 2017, when prices surged to an all-time high near $20,000.

"The increase in active addresses indicate that bitcoin is seeing increased usage and adoption," Arcane wrote Tuesday in a report.

So roughly the same percentage of respondents see bitcoin prices climbing higher as those who see the trade as overcrowded.

CME sees record high open interest for bitcoin futures on wave of institutional inflows.

Crypto-friendly U.S. regulator Brooks gets nod from Trump to serve 5-year term leading OCC. Traders brace for major volatility as bitcoin price nears record high.