Bitcoin whipsaws the market once again, this time reaching a new high for this week. The leading digital currency, Bitcoin, rose more than 3% to above $26,600 Wednesday afternoon, demonstrating resilience after the sharp fall experienced last Thursday. Close on its heels, Ether marked a 3.5% advance, steadily approaching the coveted $1,700 mark.
Notably, both these upward moves were in line with the overall 3% rise seen across the CoinDesk Market Index (CMI). Keeping pace, Prime layer-1 blockchain, Solana’s SOL, reflected a significant appreciation of nearly 7%, a surge perhaps triggered by Shopify’s integration of Solana Pay. This highly beneficial move allows USDC stablecoin payments for customers, breathing new life into Solana’s token.
Adding to the altcoin push, NEAR – the native token of the Near Protocol, saw an increase of over 6% following its integration into the crypto lending platform, Nexo. Furthermore, altcoin giants like Ada from Cardano, DOT from Polkadot, and BNB from Binance too mirrored these gains showing rises ranging between 3%-5%.
The green wave resounding throughout cryptocurrency market also found resonance in traditional markets, with both Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 reporting over 1% increase. Nvidia’s stellar earnings report, which outperformed expectations, added further buoyancy, fuelling a 9.5% surge in AI-related tokens like Fetch.AI’s FET, and around a 5% boost in AGIX and Render’s RNDR.
However, before falling into a bull-trap, remember that most digital assets are still trading significantly lower than their values from a week ago. The unanticipated percentage pullback last Thursday saw bitcoin’s value momentarily sink below the $25,000 mark.
Forecasting a possibly precarious crypto market ahead, John Glover, CIO at crypto lender Ledn and erstwhile Managing Director at Barclays, forewarns that “softer prices” may shadow the crypto market, including heavyweights BTC and ETH, in the coming weeks. But every cloud has a silver lining. Echoing this sentiment, Dan Morehead, founder of Pantera Capital, prophesies a brighter future, stating that bitcoin is unlikely to continue to wallow at these “depressed price levels” for much longer. So, the question remains – are we on the brink of a rebound, or are we falling towards a more profound drop? Only time can tell.
Source: Coindesk
