Bitcoin (BTC) rose to clip $20,000 for the first time in five days on July 4 as the Independence Day holiday brought some unexpected gains.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart. Source: Tradingview.com

$20,000 briefly reappears

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD spiking to $20,085 on the day, its best performance since June 30.

The pair had spent most of the holiday weekend at around $19,000, but the absence of Wall Street trading ultimately proved no obstacle for bulls. 

Thinner weekend order books likely exacerbated volatility compared to underlying volumes, but nonetheless, Bitcoin was up 3% on the day at the time of writing.

"Bitcoin has successfully created Bullish Divergence on the Daily Time Frame for the first time since breaking below $20,000," popular analyst Matthew Hyland noted.

On-chain analytics resource Whalemap meanwhile confirmed that whales buying coins at $19,200 had once again provided support for the market.

As Cointelegraph reported, whales had expressed a keen interest in levels immediately below $20,000, conspicuously not choosing to wait until much-vaunted levels at $16,000 and below appeared.

"Flipping $19.5K is a trigger for Bitcoin," Cointelegraph contributor Michael van de Poppe added.

Altcoins meanwhile made the most of Bitcoin's spike, with Ether (ETH) rising almost 6% to pass $1,100.

ETH/USD 1-hour candle chart. Source: Tradingview.com

Others in the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap broadly saw daily gains of around 5%.

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