Max Keiser, a prominent Bitcoin maximalist and currently the BTC advisor to El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, has shared his take on why Bitcoin keeps tanking now despite major bullish drivers. Among them are MicroStrategy’s recent frequent BTC purchases.
After dropping from almost $102,000 to slightly below $93,000 between Jan. 7 and 9, the world’s primary cryptocurrency Bitcoin has recovered the $95,700 level and has been moving in the range near $95,000. Over the past 24 hours, BTC has lost 2.57% and is changing hands at $92,933 as of this writing. The main reasons for this lengthy correction have been recent geopolitical developments, particularly the statements of the newly elected U.S. president and his ally and crypto lover Elon Musk.
Keiser spotlights Bitcoin’s hash rate over price
El Salvador’s president’s Bitcoin advisor responded to a question from a BTC enthusiast on the X social media platform. Citing his question as to why Bitcoin’s price keeps going down despite MicroStrategy’s continuous BTC purchases, announced over the past month and again just recently, Keiser recommended that the X user look at the Bitcoin hash rate. “Bitcoin price tells you nothing,” he added.
Bitcoin price tells you nothing. Look at hash rate. https://t.co/BvliLtYq1X
— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) January 12, 2025
Keiser’s reference to the BTC hash rate implies that this metric can tell much more about Bitcoin’s health and security at the moment rather than its fluctuating price. On Jan. 12, the BTC hash rate saw a notable increase of 24.78% from the previous day, soaring to 939.75 million terahashes per second (TH/s). In turn, the Bitcoin mining difficulty also went up on that day, now standing at 110.45 trillion.
The difficulty level adjusts every two weeks and ensures that miners still take 10 minutes to produce a new Bitcoin block, ensuring the network’s health and stability. A rise signifies an inflow of new miners, which is good for the network and is likely to ultimately have a positive impact on the Bitcoin price.
Large BTC whale activity plunges
According to figures shared by cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez, the number of large Bitcoin transactions has seen a drastic fall within the past 30 days. This metric has dropped by almost $52% — from 33,450 to 16,180.
The number of large transactions on the #Bitcoin $BTC network has decreased by 51.64% over the past month, dropping from 33,450 to 16,180. This could indicate a significant reduction in whale activity. pic.twitter.com/W9EgSHal03
— Ali (@ali_charts) January 13, 2025
Santiment clarified that this is a likely sign that large cryptocurrency whales are slowing down significantly in their trading activity.
