Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies were slightly weaker Tuesday but remained near recent peaks as the latest rally in digital assets took a breather. Earnings from chipmaker Nvidia this week has the potential to re-inject risk sentiment into markets that could boost tokens alongside stocks.
The price of Bitcoin has slipped 1% over the past 24 hours to below $51,800, having previously traded above $52,000 and off its recent peak near $52,800, which marks the largest digital asset’s highest levels since early December 2021. Bitcoin broke through the psychologically important $50,000 level last week for the first time in more than two years and has managed to consolidate gains above that mark, but pushes to near $53,000 have so far been short-lived.
“Such sideways consolidations are characteristic of strong bull markets, as opposed to corrective pullbacks on smoother rallies,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at broker FxPro.
Bitcoin has doubled across the past six months with multiple factors pushing prices higher. These include the U.S. approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which crypto bulls hope will usher in a fresh wave of investor interest. Bitcoin’s so-called halving, a change to the crypto’s programmatic monetary policy that will restrict token supply, also looms in the coming months and is highly anticipated.
Jubilation in the stock market also has helped cryptos, which have shown themselves to be correlated with equities and risk sentiment more broadly. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
and
S&P 500
remain near all-time highs and tech stocks have been on a tear amid the continued investor frenzy over artificial intelligence. Next up are quarterly earnings from AI chipmaker
Nvidia,
with the results on Wednesday likely to move the whole stock market and impact risk sentiment.
Beyond Bitcoin,
Ether
—the second-largest crypto—was down less than 1% to $2,900. Smaller tokens or altcoins were weaker, with
Cardano
down 1.5% and
Polygon
slipping 4%. Memecoins were more muted, with
Dogecoin
and
Shiba Inu
each down 1%.
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
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