Days after Saturday’s Bitcoin crash, the crypto market shows signs of recovery.

Bitcoin shot past $51,000 per coin, up 7.8% in the last 24 hours. The largest crypto added some $72 billion to its market cap, which reached $969 billion.

Image Source: Pixabay

Bitcoin’s rebound boosted other major cryptos, which usually trail the crypto market leader. Ethereum reached $4,390, a 10% increase over the day. Binance Coin traded at $588, up 6.42% in the same period. Solana jumped 12.37% to $201.66, while Cardano spiked 13.20% to $1.46.

Ripple, Polkadot, Terra, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu Coin all posted double-digit gains as well, while Avalanche was up 20%.

In total, the global crypto market cap jumped 10% over the last 24 hours. Due to that fact, some major cryptos all but recovered from Saturday’s crash. Ethereum is down just 1% over the previous week, while Solana is up 0.2%. However, BTC is still down almost 10% from 7 days ago.

Altcoins recovered faster than Bitcoin, pushing Bitcoin’s dominance down to 40.45%. On the other hand, Ethereum’s dominance rose, reaching 21.80%.

Whales Buy The Dip

Last Saturday’s selloff of risk assets pushed BTC as low as $43,000 on fears of interest rate hikes. The prospect of the Fed raising rates caused Bitcoin to drop more than 16% on its worse trading day since May.

That is why most traders did not expect the markets to rebound that quickly. In fact, the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index reflects that. On Monday, the measure of investor sentiment dropped to its lowest level in 5 years.

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is 16 - Extreme Fear
Current price: $50,750 pic.twitter.com/Zmp2NndLTL

— Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index (@BitcoinFear) December 6, 2021

However, the general market panic was a boon for some investors. While most traders sold, many “whales” seized the opportunity and loaded up on crypto at low prices. In fact, reports show that Bitcoin whales, the largest crypto holders, seized the crash to profit.

🐳 #Bitcoin has recovered back to $50.1k Monday, and whale traders played the dip to perfection. Beginning during the dump to $43.5k, addresses holding 100 to 10k $BTC have accumulated 67k more $BTC after dumping the same amount before the price drop. https://t.co/TcTSKBy2v7 pic.twitter.com/JxZL7nGVwR

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 6, 2021

Data from the Bitcoin blockchain showed that wallets holding from 100 to 10,000 Bitcoins accumulated 67,000 BTC after the crash. In fact, the data showed that whale dumping activity could have contributed to Saturday’s Bitcoin crash.

In fact, blockchain data also showed that the wallet with the third-largest BTC holdings bought another $137 million in Bitcoin. The unknown owner of the wallet bought more than 2,700 coins at an average price of $50,900.

You already bought 8,117 #BTC in the low $50k since the November correction, BTC dumped <$50k suddenly, what do you do?

The 3rd largest #Bitcoin whale wallet: BUY 2,702 more BTC in one day.

This #whale wallet added 2,702 $BTC today at $50.6k for a whopping total of $136.7M USD. pic.twitter.com/BlbcgpKbrR

— venturefoundΞr (@venturefounder) December 7, 2021

The third-largest whale now has 118,017 BTC in his wallet, and he is still buying. The current holding is the  largest number of BTC ever in that wallet. Since November, its owner bought up 5,624 BTC, which is now worth about $290 million.

It is impossible to know whether these wallets belong to institutional investors or just large crypto holders. Either way, it is probably a good sign for crypto. Whether institutional investors are warming to BTC or seasoned investors think crypto dropped too low, prices will likely be under upward pressure.