Bitcoin broke above US$30,000 for the first time in 10 months on Tuesday morning, sending short liquidations spiralling to US$50mln and opening the possibility for a move above 31k if the bulls remain galvanised.
30k was a key target for bitcoin longs since the start of 2023, when the benchmark cryptocurrency proved itself as among the best-performing asset classes and a safe-haven play amid widespread turmoil in the traditional markets.
Year to date, BTC/USDT is over 80% higher, with yesterday’s performance alone seeing a 4.6% surge.
The pair peaked as high as US$30,430 in today’s Asia trading window, before knocking back to slightly above 30k at the time of writing; unsurprising given the expected level of profit taking at this price point.
Bitcoin (BTC) to 31k? – Source: currency.com
Bitcoin-adjacent stocks pulled ahead as well, with Coinbase adding NEARLY 8%, crypto miner Marathon Digital adding 7%, and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) adding 3.6%.
On the GBTC note, the world’s largest bitcoin fund with US$18.3bn under management has narrowed its discount to 35% from as much as 50% in the darkest moments of the crypto winter.
Bitcoin bulls’ next target will be 31k, where Binance’s order book shows the highest concentration of selling pressure. Buying support is pitched at 29k and US$28,500.
Ethereum (ETH) peaked at US$1,940 in this morning’s Asia trading window before reverting back to US$1,910. Monday’s performance saw the ETH/USDT pair adding around 2.8%, a comparatively muted performance compared to BTC/USDT.
This week sees a major event for the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem with the Shanghai upgrade.
Shanghai will allow stakers to access around US$2bn of locked ETH followed by some US$30bn more in the weeks and months to come.
This could lead to volatile price swings for the world’s second-largest cryptoasset should stakers decide to take profit.
Bitcoin dominance steers ahead
The recent bitcoin rally has not filtered through to the altcoin space to the extent it did in late-2021, when the crypto markets surged well beyond their all-time highs.
Driving this point home is bitcoin’s two-year market dominance high of 48.42%. Dominance measures bitcoin’s market capitalisation against the whole spectrum of cryptoassets, thus a higher dominance indicates condensed sentiment around the benchmark.
Bitcoin (BTC) dominance surged to two-year high – Source: tradingview.com
Market conditions are vastly different today than they were in late 2021, when cheap money sent all manner of asset classes, from stocks and bonds to NFTs and shitcoins, skyrocketing.
Today, panic onset by numerous banking failures and sustained inflation has seen investors shift to supposed safe-haven assets, hence bitcoin’s correlated rally with physical gold, which hit a fresh all-time high earlier this month.
However, there are a few winners in the large-cap altcoin space. On a week-on-week basis, Solana (SOL) has actually outperformed bitcoin with a 10.7% rally following a 15% overnight breakout.
Binance’s BNB token is just below BTC’s week-on-week performance with 5.8% gains, particularly impressive given the sustained regulatory broadside against the fourth-largest cryptocurrency.
Looking at the mid caps, Filecoin (FIL) has gained 17 week on week while VeChain (VET) is up around 4.2%.
Dogecoin (DOGE) is bottom of the pile having dipped 12.3% after meme coin moved to an overbought position in the past week after Elon Musk changed Twitter’s logo to the infamous DOGE meme.
Musk has since reverted back to Twitter’s blue bird logo.
Global cryptocurrency market cap currently stands at US$1.24tn after adding 4.5% overnight, while total value locked in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space added 2.1% to US$51.bn.
Article updated at 4.05pm to reflect price movements.