• ICP’s price increased and is expected to hit $14.
• Open Interest climbed by 87.33%, suggesting strength for the upward price action.

Internet Computer [ICP]  contradicted the broader market trend and jumped by 32.72% in the last 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, the price of ICP was $13.44 at press time.

The increase was something that AMBCrypto found interesting. This was because it happened at a time when top cryptos like Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [ETH] traded sideways.

Per its fundamentals, ICP does not only depend on Bitcoin’s movement. Instead, it also has utilities that affect its value.

Examples of these utilities that affect its value include the store of value, and staking involving its Network Nervous System (NNS).

The NNS is the open permissionless system that controls the Internet Computer blockchain. However, AMBCrypto evaluated the project’s ecosystem and discovered that there has been no major development.

Therefore, it was easy to conclude that the price increase was due to a rising interest in the cryptocurrency.

No dependence on BTC

In 2023, ICP was one of the altcoins with a great performance. On a Year-To-Date (YTD) basis, the value increased by 234%, making it a better performer than BTC.

As a result of this, AMBCrypto went ahead to check the correlation between BTC and ICP.

According to Macroaxis, the 90-day correlation coefficient between ICP and BTC was 0.77. This reading was considered poor. So, assuming you bought ICP and BTC three months ago.

By the time of writing, you would have made 3.49 times more with ICP than Bitcoin.

Source: Macroaxis

ICP eyes a good start to 2024

Furthermore, the 4-hour ICP/USD showed that the cryptocurrency was able to breach the $10 resistance on the 30th of December. It faced another hurdle at $11.30 on the same day.

But the buying pressure was intense, and it also flipped the zone.

Futher assessment of the chart indicated that ICP was overbought. This was confirmed by the Money Flow Index (MFI) whose reading was 94.75. Values of the MFI above 80 suggest that an asset is overbought. Typically, this should lead to a reversal.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) also displayed a similar condition with a reading of 80.51. With no red candles in sight, ICP might start the new year as the best-performing altcoin.

Source: TradingView

In addition, the 24-hour Open Interest around ICP increased by 87.33%. Open Interest is the value of liquidity connected to open contracts around an asset.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the ICP Profit Calculator

The Open Interest also plays a vital role in determining price strength and market sentiment. A decrease in the Open Interest would have invalidated the bullish thesis.

Source: Coinglass

But since the metric increased, it means there is enough strength for the ICP price to keep increasing. As it stands, ICP has the potential to hit $14. But that would only occur if traders do not decide to take profits along the way.