Bitcoin prices have been receiving weekend bumps this summer: Bitfinex

Unlike stock markets, the crypto market is open for trading 24/7, which can often lead to price swings on Saturdays and Sundays. So, has the summertime made living easy this year?

Over the past month, Bitfinex analysts found that Saturdays saw an average return of 1.6% in the price of bitcoin. When broadening the scope to include the past three months, the average return on Saturdays is a slightly more muted 0.9%. Recent supply pressures driven by the German government and Mt. Gox seem to subside during the weekend. 

“[I]n our view, crypto asset prices in general in the current period have been determined by the news agenda, rather than fundamentals,” the Bitfinex analysts said. “Selling pressure concerns have not completely disappeared as Mt. Gox creditors are also scheduled to receive their BTC payouts over the next couple of weeks. We expect these headlines to continue to have some impact on price before a complete pricing in of the situation.”

Bitcoin made a big move this past weekend, moving from the $58,000 area to cross the $63,000 level by early Monday morning, following the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. In recent months, the former president has shifted his tone to take a pro-crypto stance heading into the November election.

“Trump survived an assassination attempt over the weekend, which the market interprets as significantly increasing his chances of winning the future election,” said Ryan Lee, chief analyst of Bitget Research. 

Meanwhile, Germany’s crypto wallet reached a zero balance last Friday, and the government appears to have transferred all of its bitcoin to different exchanges and market makers. Mt. Gox has continued to move billions of dollars worth of BTC ahead of anticipated creditor payouts.

So far this week, bitcoin has bucked the retracement trend, with the price of bitcoin trading around $64,624 at publication time, up about 2% over the past 24 hours and more than 12% over the past five days. Trump is expected to speak later this week at the Republican National Convention, where he picked pro-crypto Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.