From cointelegraph by William Suberg

Bitcoin BTC$98,110 passed $98,000 after the Dec. 24 Wall Street open as “large spot buyers” lifted deflated BTC price action.

Santa rally talk returns as BTC price gains $5,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting new local highs of $98,020 on Bitstamp.

Up by more than 3% on the day, Bitcoin attracted fresh bids after a shaky start to the week saw a retest of December lows.

Commenting on the latest moves, popular X account Exitpump was among the optimists hoping that a “Santa rally” may have come for crypto after all.

“BTC Large spot buyers showing up, lfg,” a post stated alongside a chart showing exchange order-book volumes.

The latest data from monitoring resource CoinGlass put 24-hour BTC short liquidations at nearly $40 million at the time of writing, with the cross-crypto total at $150 million.

“Nice strength in bitcoin today,” fellow analytics account Bitcoindata21 continued alongside a chart showing necessary volume-weight average price (VWAP) levels to reclaim next.

“So far we have flipped the first VWAP resistance (green arrow), and if we can flip the second one at 98.5k, then all time highs can be tackled. Coinbase premium also looks like it wants to break the downtrend (blue line).”

The chart additionally showed a rebound in the Coinbase premium, reflecting increased buying pressure during US trading hours.

Analyst: Bitcoin downside still a risk

In his own X coverage, popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital adopted a more cautious view.

Related: Bitcoin bull market over? ‘Decembear’ has only sent BTC price 2% lower

“Yesterday, Bitcoin showed some signs of a relief rally after which price was rejected to almost new lows. Today, Bitcoin is rebounding yet again and once again into the old support,” he wrote.

“Overall, as long as the previously lost supports turn into new resistance — additional downside should be expected. Conversely, a reclaim of these previously lost supports would obviously be bullish.”

Bitcoin outperformed US stocks on the day, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes both up by less than 1%.