Market update
Bitcoin has been on a rollercoaster ride lately. It dropped sharply from its recent all-time high but rallied 10% mid-week on news of three potential US interest rate cuts this year. Then it fell to near the A$93K (US$61K) level following a week of outflows from the Bitcoin ETFs, recovered slowly and suddenly surged back above A$108K/US$70K overnight. Santiment reports that almost 52K Bitcoin was accumulated by wallets holding 10-10K Bitcoin on Sunday US time alone. One swallow does not a Summer make, but Rekt Capital is already musing about whether the surge marks the end of the traditional “Pre Halving Retrace “, which would make it -18% this cycle compared to -19% in 2020. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 5% on seven days ago to trade at A$107,729 (US$70,433), while Ethereum gained 5% to trade at A$5,541 (US$3,622). Solana pulled back 2%, Avalanche lost 6.3%, XRP and Cardano gained 2%, and Dogecoin gained 22.7%. Independent Reserve has just listed Shiba Inu, which gained 7.1% this week. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 75 or Greed.
Bitcoin pulled back 5% this week — but remains up 31% over the past 30 days and is currently trading at A$103,770 (US$67.6K). Ethereum fell 12% to trade at A$5,388 (US$3,517) despite the network’s Dencun upgrade reducing fees to sub-cent levels. Part of the issue was that Solana’s soaring activity and price saw social media users comparing it very favourably to ETH’s slow and expensive L1, rather than ETH’s cheap and fast L2s. Solana surged 30%, hit a record-high market cap, and is now the fourth-largest cryptocurrency. XRP lost 8%, Cardano fell 11%, Avalanche gained 25%, and Dogecoin lost 19%, even though Elon Musk said Telsa plans to add it as a method of payment at some point. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 77, or Extreme Greed.
The 2024 bull run has begun in earnest with Bitcoin trading at new all-time high prices in US dollars, up 7% this week to US$72,500 (A$109,500). Ethereum has topped the US$4,000 mark for the first time since late 2021, and finishes the week up 8% to trade at US$4,064 (A$6,138). The market cap of Bitcoin is now higher than the market cap of silver, and Coinbase is worth more than PayPal. Around 1,500 Bitcoin addresses are becoming “millionaire wallets” every day, and MicroStrategy has just bought another US$821.7M (A$1.24B) of Bitcoin. With the halving just over a month away and market pricing in US interest rate cuts in June, the future looks promising. Almost everything else was up, including Solana (13%), XRP (12%) and Cardano (2%). However, Dogecoin pulled back 1%. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 82, or Extreme Greed.
Bitcoin officially broke through the A$100K barrier yesterday, and it’s at all-time highs against 14 of the world’s top 20 fiat currencies, including the euro, yen and pound. The ATH in USD is just above US$69K (A$106K), and the inflation-adjusted high is around US$78.5K (A$120.6K). At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 24% on the same time last week and 57% for the month, to trade around A$103,850 (US$67,882). Ethereum gained 13.3% this week (55.9% for the month) to trade around A$5,506 (US$3,603). Everything else was up, including Solana (20%), XRP (18%) and Cardano (25%). Memecoins are flying with Dogecoin doubling, Shiba Inu gaining 241%, and the best-performing categories of the past seven weeks are “cat-themed memecoins” (up 199%), “fractionalised NFTs” (161%), “dog-themed coins” (164%) and “Elon Musk inspired coins” (108%). The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 90, or Extreme Greed. Traditionally, money has flowed from Bitcoin to Ethereum and then Altcoins; however, the Bitcoin ETFs may change that equation.
It’s been a big week for crypto with Bitcoin surging past US$54K ($83.7K) – a level not seen since November 2021, the same month that BTC hit its all-time high. Microstrategy continues to buy, snapping up another 3,000 Bitcoin this month. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading around A$83,743 (US$54,770), up 6% on a week ago, and Ethereum was also climbing back toward historic highs at A$4,870 (US$3,185), up 8%. Not every coin joined the party, with Solana and XRP falling 2% each, Cardano and Dogecoin were flat. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 75, or Greed.
Bitcoin’s market capitalisation is back over the US$1 trillion mark (A$1.53T), and assets under management in global institutionally focused crypto funds are back at December 2021 levels – around US$67 billion (A$103B), according to Coinshares. The crypto turnaround has been pretty sudden with Coinbase’s fourth quarter report showing it has finally returned to profit for the first time since 2021 after a US$2B (A$3.1B) loss the previous quarter. It forced JPMorgan’s analysts to grudgingly upgrade the stock all the way to “neutral.” Bitcoin is currently up 4% on seven days ago and trading at A$79,840 (US$51.9K) while Ethereum gained 2.7% to trade at A$4,562 (US$2,970). Everything else was up except Avalanche (down 2.1%), including Solana (1.3% gain), XRP (6.4%), Cardano (13.1%) and Dogecoin (4.5%). The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 75 or Greed.