Bitcoin prices have been on the rise in the last couple of weeks and the digital asset has been able to return to its November 2022 levels. This has been a much-needed boost for the market during this time, but an unexpected investor group is reportedly driving the price of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Surges Are Happening During U.S. Hours

In a new that was shared with NewsBTC via email, U.S. institutional investors are driving the recent price increase of bitcoin. The report notes that over the course of January, the digital asset is already up over 40% but more than 35% of those increases have happened during U.S. trading hours. As such, the research report concludes that U.S. investors are driving the price. Matrixport explains the reasoning behind this by saying that when an asset performs so well during U.S. hours, especially one that trades for 24 hours, it shows that institutional investors are buying the asset. However, when it does well during Asian hours, then it means that Asian retail investors are buying it.

BTC moves the most during U.S. trading hours | Source: Matrixport

The most significant movements have happened during this time and the trend lines show very strong similarity to Bitcoin’s movements to this point. But even more interesting is the fact that the data shows that U.S.-based investors are responsible for 85% of the total BTC buying that is happening currently.

What Is Driving These U.S.-Based Investors?

As the Matrixport report notes, U.S.-based investors have been encouraged by the inflation slow-down. It has put individual and institutional investors in positions where they believe they can take more risks. Hence, there is a marked increase in their exposure to risk assets such as bitcoin.

BTC price rises over 40% in less than 30 days | Source: 

Furthermore, the report points to the possibility of more rallies given the fact that inflation is expected to keep falling. “This could set up the crypto market for a mid-month rally, every month and turn into a trend where we see a strong rally from mid-month onwards with some consolidation towards the end of the month as traders take profit and miners sell calls.” This is also good news for altcoins as Matrixport notes that historically, money flowing into bitcoin will eventually spread out into other digital assets. So this could mean that the market has not seen the last of the altcoin rally once these institutional investors begin spreading out their investments. BTC is currently trading at $22,959 at the time of this writing. The coin is seeing small gains of 0.06% in the last 24 hours but on a seven-day rolling basis, the digital asset is still doing quite well with 9.45% gains.