Bitcoin (BTC) posted its fourth straight day of strong gains on Monday, surging more than 5% against the US dollar to hit a fresh year-to-date high of $42,420.
Tuesday trades have since been more muted, with the BTC/USDT pair retracing its steps back to $41,600, though not before punching a sizeable dent in short positions on the futures market.
A total of $84 million in short positions was liquidation, the highest single-day value in nearly a month.
“In moments of intense market movements, such liquidations often amplify the trend's momentum, in this case, facilitating a substantial upward spike with BTC reaching the $42,000 level,” explained Matteo Greco at Fineqia International.
Greco pointed out that bitcoin has surpassed its seventh straight week of price increases, a trend not observed since November 2020, demonstrating “renewed confidence in the digital asset market”.
Much of this confidence is tied to the pending decision from US regulators to approve exchange-traded bitcoin products, a move widely seen as a watershed for mainstream participation in the bitcoin markets.
Until then, bitcoin remains in a strong position with more than 150% in gains clocked in 2023 so far.
Bitcoin surges 150% in 2023 – Source: tradingview.com
Though Ethereum (ETH) had a positive Monday trading session by adding around 2.3%, the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market surrendered these gains this morning.
At the time of writing, ETH was swapping for $2,202, marking a 9.6% week-on-week gain against BTC’s 12.5%.
In the wider altcoin space, Dogecoin (DOGE), Avalanche (AVAX) and Polkadot (DOT) added double digits to their respective market capitalisation over the past week, while BNB, Tron (TRX) and Ripple (XRP) have underperformed.
Global crypto market capitalisation is currently $1.53 trillion, with bitcoin dominance clocking in a 54.3%.