Bitcoin 

BTC

$16,935

 returned to $21,000 for the first time since September after the Oct. 26 Wall Street open as buyers solidified gains.

BTC bulls “eat” ask liquidity

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit local highs of $21,012 on Bitstamp.

At the time of writing, the pair continued to explore territory out of reach for over six weeks.

Liquidations also kept flowing, with the past 24 hours delivering $750 million in liquidated positions on Bitcoin alone, according to data from Coinglass.

Cross-crypto liquidations totaled $1.43 billion, adding to what was already the highest tally in 2022 so far.

The impetus did not come from United States equities on the day, which were treading water as Bitcoin played catch-up while reducing overall risk-asset correlation.

The spotlight was instead on gold, which also saw a relief rally as the U.S. dollar struggled. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) circled its lowest levels since Sep. 20.

Tracking the order book on the largest global exchange, Binance, analytics platform Material Indicators noted ask liquidity was moving higher.

“A big chunk of ask liquidity was eaten in the past 24 hours and some has been replenished, but there is no question that BTC bulls got some help when blocks of bid and ask liquidity were adjusted upward,” it wrote in part of a Twitter update.

$21,000 formed a key level for some analysts, among them Il Capo of Crypto, who previously forecast the market retracing at that point to retarget macro lows.

Fellow trader and analyst Rekt Capital also noted that Bitcoin was not yet out of the woods when it came to its comedown from all-time highs.

“On the normal scale, BTC is breaking its year-long downtrend,” he tweeted alongside comparative charts.

“On the log scale however, the year-long downtrend is still far away from being tested.”

Crypto market cap eyes key milestone

Beyond Bitcoin, there was also good news for crypto markets in general. 

Related: Why is the crypto market up today?

The overall crypto market capitalization, which had lost significant value over the year, came within 5% of the $1 trillion mark on the day.

"Total Market Cap of crypto is up 2.5% today," David Gokhstein, founder of Gokhstein Media, reacted, noting the euphoric feeling among market participants.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.