U.S. institutions have probably been behind Januaryrs rally in bitcoin (BTC), when the cryptocurrency gained more than 38%. An outperformance this early in the year tends to be bullish for the tokenrs price, crypto services provider Matrixport said in a research report Wednesday.

In five of the six years that bitcoin has rallied in January, the cryptocurrency has ended the year with positive returns. On average, the gain the rest of the year has been more than 245%, wrote Markus Thielen, head of research.

The only year when bitcoin declined after a strong January was 2014, when prices had just made a bull-market peak, the note said.

Matrixport says the driver of the 2023 bull market could be the expected March 2024 bitcoin halving cycle, when the amount of the cryptocurrency entering the system every 10 minutes drops by 50%. Therefore, there is a high statistical probability that the bitcoin price could double from here until year end, the report said.

This means the bitcoin price could reach $45,000 by Christmas, the report added.

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