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Bitcoin jumped to start the week, edging even closer to an all-time high after the rally took a breather over the weekend.
The top cryptocurrency was last up 6% at $66,660.91, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it touched $67,567.98, its highest level since November 2021. Ether rose 4%, trading near January 2022 highs of $3,607.49.
Both coins are coming off their best week in nearly a year — bitcoin gained about 21% and ether 16% — but stalled over the weekend as the market absorbed two days of sharp outflows from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). which were offset by inflows into other “newborn” exchange-traded bitcoin funds.
Bitcoin is headed for an all-time high
“With the birth of these nine new ETFs, the big moves now tend to happen during the normal trading week and not on weekends,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto exchange Nexo.
“What we’re seeing today … may well be a repeat of early last week, when bitcoin jumped $10,000 over the course of a few days,” he added. “We are in such an environment where a day or two of sideways consolidation can precede explosive price action thanks to voracious demand for these new spot ETFs.”
At $67,000, bitcoin is about 3% off its November 2021 intraday high of $68,982.20.
Bitcoin lifted other cryptocurrencies, especially meme coins. Dogecoin rose 13%, while the Shiba Inu coin rose 39%. Analysts point to these as evidence that retail investors, who were absent for much of the recent crypto rally, are starting to return to the crypto market. Last week, the weekly trading volume of meme tokens rose to the highest level since late 2021, according to crypto data provider Kaiko.
Some crypto stocks have led the bitcoin wave, such as Coinbase and Microstrategy, up 7% and 20%, respectively. Miners remained, however, paring earlier gains as the short-term impact of the upcoming halving in April – when mining companies’ revenues will fall – weighs on investors. Riot Platforms, Iris Energy and CleanSpark each decreased by about 6%. Crypto mining fell 4% and Marathon Digital sank about 2%.
Some analysts have suggested that while bitcoin could continue to rise in the short term, it may cool off in the coming weeks as unrealized margins approach extreme levels. Bitcoin’s realized price is around $42,700, according to CryptoQuant.
However, long-term investors are confident that the combination of rising demand for bitcoin via new US ETFs and a tighter supply expected after the April halving event will push the price of bitcoin to a new all-time high.
Crypto is also getting a little boost from the stock market, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite hit an all-time high on Friday, becoming the last of the major stock indexes to post a record this year. David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, said that while March may be a lopsided month for bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is benefiting from a productivity boom based on AI and blockchain technology that he expects is here to stay.
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