• Maker price jumped Thursday, hitting intraday highs above $1,186.
• MKR was paring some of the gains as crypto slumped, with prices around $1,141 at the time of writing.
• Data showed whales have been busy since early July, accumulating over 61.5k MKR.

Maker (MKR) price has witnessed an impressive upside over the past 24 hours, breaking above a price level that had constrained bulls since the broader market downturn in mid-August. 

MKR pushed to highs of $1,186 before it began to pare the gains as sellers swooped in amid profit taking deals.

Why is Maker price up?

On-chain data shows accumulation for Maker has been on the rise since early July. Santiment analysts are saying the two-month accumulation that saw whales and sharks buy more than $70 million worth of the cryptocurrency could provide the impetus bulls need to target new highs in September.

Per the platform, holders with 10k-100k MKR tokens added 61,500 of the governance token to their positions since July 9, 2023. The cohort held between $11.6k and $11.6 million worth of Maker’s token as price crossed the $1,160 level. 

What does this accumulation mean for Maker price? Further buy-side pressure could catapult bulls beyond $1,200, bringing the YTD highs around $1,350 into play in the short term. The flip side is added profit taking.

“Their holdings will continue to correlate with future price movement,” analysts at the market intelligence platform noted in a post shared on X.

🐳📈 #Maker has enjoyed a nice +12% day while the rest of #crypto slumps. This can largely be attributed to accumulation by the whales & sharks holding between $11.6K to $11.6M $MKR. Their holdings will continue to correlate with future price movement. https://t.co/FjwTAsXysg pic.twitter.com/eqY9LvvDa6

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) August 31, 2023

Other catalysts of MKR price

As CoinJournal highlighted today in a MKR price analysis piece, Maker’s push into South Korea appears to be one of the catalysts for upward move. This came even as the crypto market retreated after this week’s Grayscale-fueled spike.

Notably, the SEC is 2-0 down after the July 13 Ripple victory and the latest court ruling that the regulator acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when rejecting Grayscale’s ETF application. Binning SEC’s order adds to the likelihood of a spot ETF finally coming to the US market. Bitcoin and altcoins are poised, with MKR firmly in the picture.