Crypto Markets Soar as Stocks Rally, Oil Drops 5%

Crypto markets are off to a strong start this week, with major altcoins surging amid more than $400 million in short liquidations. Stocks rallied while oil dropped 5% after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that Iranian oil tankers are being allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $74,000, up 3.5% over the past 24 hours. Layer 1 tokens are outperforming, with ETH surging 10% to $2,320, and SOL climbing 8% to $95.

Meanwhile, Polkadot (DOT) rallied 15%, Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA) gained around 9%, and BNB added 2%.

The overall crypto market capitalization climbed 3.5% to $2.61 trillion, according to Coingecko.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy purchased an additional 22,337 Bitcoin between March 9 and March 15 for approximately $1.57 billion at an average price of $70,194 per coin, according to a Monday SEC filing. The acquisition, one of the company’s largest to date, brings its total holdings to 761,068 BTC.

Nearly all of the Top 100 digital assets posted gains over the last 24 hours.

Today’s top gainers are Zcash (ZEC) and PEPE, which both surged 20%.

TRUMP and Bittensor (TAO) are the biggest losers, down 4% and 2%, respectively.

Around 120,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for $542 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, with short positions comprising $420 million. Bitcoin accounted for $173 million, while ETH led with $220 million.

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded inflows of $180 million on Friday, bringing last week’s total inflows to $767 million, according to SoSoValue.