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Bitcoin jumped to begin the week, edging even closer to its all-time high after the rally took a breather over the weekend.
The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by 7.65% at $67,608.30, in keeping with Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose to as much as $67,977.77, its highest level since November 2021, when it reached its all-time high. Ether advanced 3.41%, trading near January 2022 highs at $3,588.83.
Each coins are coming off their best week in almost a yr — bitcoin gained about 21% and ether 16% — but paused their run over the weekend because the market digested two days of steep outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) that were offset by inflows into other “newborn” bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
“With the birth of those nine latest ETFs the massive moves now are likely to happen in the course of the normal trading week slightly than the weekends,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto exchange Nexo.
“What we’re seeing today … might well be a rerun of early last week when bitcoin surged $10,000 within the space of a few days,” he added. “We’re in that form of environment when a day or two of sideways consolidation can precede explosive price motion because of the voracious demand of those latest spot ETFs.”
At $67,000, bitcoin sits about 3% off its intraday record of $68,982.20.
Bitcoin lifted other crypto tokens, especially meme coins. Dogecoin surged 14%, while Shiba Inu coin rocketed 45%. Analysts point to them as evidence that retail investors, who’ve been absent for much of the recent crypto rally, are beginning to return to the crypto market. Last week, meme tokens’ weekly trade volume surged to their highest level since late 2021, in keeping with crypto data provider Kaiko.
Some crypto equities rode the bitcoin wave, corresponding to Coinbase and Microstrategy, which rose 11% and 24%, respectively. Miners sat the rally out, nonetheless, giving back earlier gains because the short-term effect of the upcoming halving in April — when mining corporations’ revenue will likely be slashed — weighed on investors. CleanSpark and Cipher Mining dropped greater than 7% each, while Iris Energy and Marathon Digital each dipped nearly 5% and Riot Platforms slid nearly 7%.
Some analysts have suggested that while bitcoin could keep rising within the short term, it might cool in the following few weeks, as unrealized profit margins approach extreme levels. Bitcoin’s realized price is sitting at nearly $42,700, in keeping with CryptoQuant.
Nevertheless, long-term investors are confident that the mixture of accelerating demand for bitcoin through the brand new U.S. ETFs and a tighter supply expected after the April halving event will push the worth of bitcoin to a latest all-time high.
Crypto has also been getting a bid from the stock market, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite reached an all-time high on Friday, becoming the last of the foremost stock indexes to hit a record close this yr.
David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, said that although March may very well be a month of sideways grinding for bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is benefiting from an AI- and blockchain technology-driven productivity boom he expects is here to remain.
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