Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies jumped on Monday, with the largest digital asset hitting a 20-month high.
The price of Bitcoin rose 5% over the past 24 hours to about $41,750, blowing past the key levels of $39,000, $40,000, and $41,000 in a weekend surge that took the token to its highest level since April 2022.
Bitcoin has gained more than 50% since mid-October, snapping out of a long lull. The last time prices were so high was just before the Terra stablecoin network collapsed, touching off a brutal bear market.
“While Bitcoin is overbought on daily timeframes, this is not necessarily a reason for a correction…the first cryptocurrency can move for many more days, drawing more and more layers of investors into [the fear of missing out],” said Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at broker FxPro. “Technically, up to $46,000 is thin-air territory for Bitcoin, and price swings between $40,000 and $46,000 can be pretty wild.”
Bitcoin has even vastly outperformed the red-hot
Dow Jones Industrial Average
and
S&P 500,
which have been on a roll since late October, driven by crypto-native and macroeconomic catalysts alike.
The major force behind Bitcoin’s gains has been hopes that regulators will soon approve the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which experts predict would usher in a fresh wave of investor interest in digital assets.
Increasing expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates multiple times next year—a macro backdrop that has also lifted stocks—has helped matters, with lower rates tending to benefit riskier bets like Bitcoin and tech stocks.
Ether,
the second-largest crypto, rose 3% to $2,250. Smaller tokens or altcoins were more mixed, with
Cardano
climbing 3% and
Polygon
less than 1% lower. Memecoins were more buoyant:
Dogecoin
jumped 4% and
Shiba Inu
surged 5%.
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
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