As the work week closes on the crypto market’s first bullish uptick of 2019, Cumberland, the Chicago-based cryptocurrency trading arm of DRW Holdings, LLC, reports a spike in large-scale bitcoin trades that took place Monday evening.

No Crypto April Fool’s Joke – the Bull is Real

In a tweet posted Thursday afternoon, Cumberland’s post-trade analysis of Monday evening’s trading activity showed that a series of large Bitcoin trades took place between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am CST.

Desk Update: The post-trade analysis of Monday evening’s price action revealed a series of large bids (>1,000 BTC per order) within a 1 hour span, which appear to be actual buyers vs. forced liquidations. pic.twitter.com/UiuHLoCbPr — Cumberland (@CumberlandSays) April 4, 2019

A closer look at the chart posted by Cumberland reveals what looks to be 15 separate trades worth more than 1000 BTC each – approximately $4.16 million at the time of execution. Combined, the trades would have been worth a minimum of $62.4 million at Monday’s prices.

Putting to rest concerns that the bids were merely placed rather than actually executed and filled, Cumberland’s Global Head of Trading, Bobby Cho, confirmed that the reported transactions were “executed, economically binding trades”.

When the Bear’s Away, the Bulls Will Play

Cumberland isn’t the only one reporting some serious Bitcoin trading action. Earlier this week, BitcoinerX reported on what is believed to be a single anonymous buyer snapping up more than $100 million in bitcoins from trades executed on Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp.

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, CEO of cryptocurrency firm BCB Group, noted:

There has been a single order that has been algorithmically-managed across these three venues, of around 20,000 BTC. If you look at the volumes on each of those three exchanges – there were in-concert, synchronized, units of volume of around 7,000 BTC in an hour.

Following the unexpected overnight rally of more than 15% between April 1st and 2nd, the price of Bitcoin continued to rise, peaking at just over $5200 on April 3rd. At press time, Bitcoin sits right around $5025 – up more than 3% over the past 24 hours.

As for the crypto market in general, the total current market cap is approximately $175.78 billion – down 5.35% from Wednesday’s peak, but still more than 18% higher than this time a week ago, when the total market cap sat at $143.8 billion.

Are we seeing the beginning of a bull run? Will we see more whales snapping up Bitcoin before prices go higher? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Cumberland, Shutterstock