Bitcoin's price has increased dramatically since the popular OKEx exchange announced the suspension of all cryptocurrency withdrawal services on its platform. However, while some link the two events, many market watchers see no reason to associate the latest price hike with OKEx problems.
The suspension of OKEx withdrawals and the Bitcoin bull run are independent events
While the price of bitcoin has risen significantly since the March market crash (here the quotation in real time), the recent bull run began just as OKEx said it had suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals because one of its key holders lost contact with the company.
However, the suspension of withdrawals on OKEx has had minimal impact on the price of bitcoin over the past month, said Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant. “Users can trade their BTC on OKEx despite the suspension of withdrawals,” he said.
According to data source Skew, the Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange still remains the number 1 position for open interest on bitcoin futures, which is currently worth $ 1,22 billion.
OKEx has announced that the pickup service will resume this week. Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx, said his high open interest is a positive indicator for his company.
"These are encouraging signs that trust in the exchange remains high and I believe that even if some users decide to withdraw their funds (when the feature comes back up), which is their total and absolute right, they will soon be returning to OKEx," he said. Hao.
Decrease in the impact of Chinese miners on prices
The volume of bitcoin transfer from miners to OKEx has also dropped almost to zero since the news came out, data from Glassnode shows. Miners in China are struggling to get their bitcoins into cash due to a government crackdown on Chinese exchanges.
Darius Sit, founder of Singapore-based trading firm QCP, links the situation of miners in China with the market, saying that instead of going to other platforms, miners may have kept their bitcoins as prices continue to rise, causing an anomalous bitcoin offer.
However, others largely disagree with such claims, arguing that the amount of bitcoin affected by the suspension of OKEx's withdrawal is relatively small. In contrast, Ryan Watkins, a bitcoin analyst at Messari pointed out that the recent bitcoin rally is mainly driven by the demand side, as institutional investors in North America have bought bitcoin in large quantities.
OKEx's “perfect” suspension timing and price hike could be purely coincidental, Watkins added. Chainalysis data also indicates that after mining pools stopped sending bitcoins to OKEx, their newly minted cryptocurrency flowed to Binance and Huobi, both of which are widely used in China.
