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Bitcoin it peaked early in the last week of March, regaining the $69,000 level.
According to Coin Metrics, the price of the flagship cryptocurrency was higher by about 6% at $69,778.60. Ether jumped 5% to $3,575.01. Most other cryptocurrencies have also ridden bitcoin’s wave.
MicroStrategywhich trades as a proxy for the price of bitcoin, increased by 17%, while Coinbase advanced 9%. The mining sector has also received a boost from Bitcoin Digital marathon AND Riot control platforms up by 2% and 6% respectively. CleanSpark increased by 16% and Cipher mining earned 12%.
Bitcoin jumps to start the week
Bitcoin has been in correction mode for the past week, having reached an all-time high of $73,797.68 on March 14. It fell to around $60,800 on Wednesday. Alex Thorn, head of corporate research at Galaxy Digital, said such declines are “well within the norm of historical short-term bull market corrections.”
The reason for Monday’s big run was unclear, but the cryptocurrency’s price action in March was characterized by new highs followed by healthy pullbacks. Thorn suggested that investors are taking a break from selling shares of bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
“Record GBTC outflows over the past two weeks, likely driven by bankruptcy liquidations at Genesis and Gemini, contributed to weakness in spot prices, but several technical indicators pointed to seller exhaustion,” Thorn said.
Sam Callahan, chief analyst at bitcoin services firm Swan Bitcoin, said it was likely tied to the message from the Federal Reserve last week.
“Fed officials made clear last week that they are considering both rate cuts and reducing the pace of its quantitative tightening program this year,” he said. “Such actions will improve liquidity conditions, acting as a positive catalyst for asset prices. Bitcoin functions as a barometer of liquidity conditions and has responded favorably to the Fed’s message that monetary policy is likely to ease in the near future.”
Despite its pullbacks, Bitcoin is on track to end March on a winning note. It has gained 12% for the month and 64% so far for the first quarter.