BTC/USD was trading at $42,000 at the start of trading on March 9 according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
The pair has defied the latest wave of macro concerns by gaining over 11% in only 24 hours, making it one among the strongest performers in the broader crypto market.
Despite traders and experts' conflicting feelings about the move's true significance, new information concerning US President Joe Biden's executive order on cryptoassets appeared to calm some of the market's anxieties.
An accompanying information sheet suggested that the order was more investigative than punitive, setting it apart from the White House's previous initiatives, which included the Infrastructure Bill last year.
"The Administration will continue to collaborate across agencies and with Congress to develop rules that mitigate risks and promote responsible innovation," the statement added. "United international capabilities that respond to national security issues in tandem with technological advancements will be developed by our allies and partners, as well as the business sector."
Bill Barhydt, the founder and CEO of payment gateway Abra, reacted by calling the directive a "nothing burger with a side of psychobabble" and claiming that as a result, Bitcoin was rallying.
The fact sheet made no mention of "Bitcoin" at all, instead referring to "digital assets" and "cryptocurrencies."
"An Executive Order on crypto-assets was signed by President Biden today. I look forward to collaborating with colleagues across the administration to advance critical public policy objectives like as investor and consumer protection and eliminating illicit activities, and assisting in the maintenance of financial stability," the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, Gary Gensler, wrote on Twitter.
One of the proposals outlined in the directive was for the US government to conduct more research into a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
Executive Order by President Joe Biden
Earlier today, President Biden unveiled the first "Whole of Government Strategy" for digital assets. Many federal departments were required to work together on policy formulation under his specially direction.
It was noted in the president's executive order that any policies governing digital assets must protect not only investors but also consumers, businesses, and the entire financial system.
After Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accidentally posted a press statement outlining the directive's pro-industry posture last night, market participants obtained a better understanding of the directive's pro-industry stance today.
Biden's order for a coordinated and comprehensive approach to digital asset policy was mentioned in the statement.
The resistance in the range isn't to be broken.
BTC price action was boosted by the events, allowing market participants to raise their short-term predicting.
Others were more cautious, with Crypto Ed predicting that the previous range high will not be repeated.
In his most recent Twitter update, he wrote:"BTC appears to have completed that transaction at $42,550. It appears that a marginal new high was apparently."
Despite this, bearish predictions maintained, with little evidence that Bitcoin will break out of its range high near $46,000.
Since July 2021, Bitcoin transaction fees have remained low, with no signs of increasing, according to Arcane Research.
Do you need to transmit some Satoshi or restructure your Bitcoin (BTC) wallets? It's becoming increasingly affordable to do so. Bitcoin "transaction fees have remained low since July 2021, exhibiting no signs of growing," according to an Arcane Research research.
Last week, though, there was a modest increase in transaction fees. Clustering of the mempool pushed "raise the average transaction fees each day over the past seven days to $691,000, a doubling since last Tuesday," as indicated as a slight uptick at the tail end of the graph.
Even though, transaction fees have barely budged: they're essentially flat. It took two days for miners to process mempool transactions, keeping transaction fees low while ensuring the network's security.
According to Eric Yakes, author of the Bitcoin book The 7th Property, there are three key causes for the low transaction costs: Segwit acceptance, hash rate redistribution, and the implementation of Bitcoin layer-2 infrastructure, such as the near-instant payment Lightning Network.
"When Segwit transactions on-chain jumped from 50% to 70% in June 2021, the network's transaction throughput should have grown significantly. It has since increased to above 80%."
Over the course of 2021, Cointelegraph reported on the growing number of exchanges using Segwit addresses.
Following the China prohibition and redistribution of hash rate, "network difficulty bottomed and has since increased to ATHs," according to Yakes in July 2021. As the number of Segwit transactions increases:
"Because the difficulty adjustment can't keep up with the increased hash rate, transactions are clearing more quickly than they otherwise would, lowering transaction costs."
Transaction costs, on the other hand, "should not be expected to stay consistent," according to Yakes. Hash rate and difficulty will eventually find their equilibrium, making the fee market less competitive and raising transaction costs, all of which is dependent on pricing."
Swan Bitcoin editor-in-chief Tomer Strolight cites another factor for the low transaction costs:
"At the moment, all of the major exchanges are batching transactions." This suggests that they are making 100 or more withdrawals in a single transaction, rather than the horrible practice of sending out each withdrawal individually, as was the case a few years ago."
Furthermore, the Lightning Network's capacity to open "channels when the blockchain is uncongested and then reuse them avoids the chain from getting crowded whenever a faster, cheaper lightning transaction is available."
While these four variables are crucial, according to the Arcane research report, it's also "probable that a decreased number of transactions per day has drove down the average transaction charge."
"Transaction fees may rise in the short term," Yakes says, "but there are so many trends working against greater transaction fees that I believe they will continue to fall over time."
"I really see that we can progressively develop the network capacity to handle all of the world's trade without the blockchain becoming an insurmountable bottleneck," Tromer says.
Another feather in BTC's cap: the system continues to scale smoothly, making transactions on the network more economical.
