Bitcoin advances, briefly breaks through $25,000

Bitcoin rallied to its highest price point in more than eight months as BTC broke through the $25,000 mark on Thursday. The surge came amid further regulatory crackdowns in the U.S., with regulators going after Paxos for its BUSD issuance. The week before saw BTC price action flat for the most part as the Securities and Exchange Commission cracked down on Kraken’s crypto staking plans.

Bitcoin’s breaking $25,000 was the high point of the week. BTC gained 10% between Wednesday and Thursday, with its positive price action spurring gains across the board as major tokens like ETH, ADA, and MATIC recorded double-digit gains during the week.

Bitcoin price action this week. Image: TradingView

CloutContracts was the biggest gainer. The project’s native token CCS rallied almost 17-fold during the week. Other major gainers included FLOKI, BOTTO, VELA and TRU. The latter’s price surge came amid a $50 million mint of its stablecoin TrueUSD in the wake of the SEC enforcement action against Paxos and BUSD.

Bitcoin ended the week by retracing to the mid-$24,000 range. The pullback happened after BTC was unable to move beyond local resistance at the $25,200 price level.

Crypto stocks

Stock prices of publicly traded crypto companies were also mostly in the green this past week. MicroStrategy rallied 22%, adding $53 to its stock price before ending the week trading at $294.

Coinbase rose 17% to close out at $65.20. The surge came amid renewed interest from Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest. The investment firm upped its exposure to COIN by acquiring an additional $6.7 million worth of Coinbase shares.

Silvergate also ended the week in the green, but its price action was more volatile. The crypto-friendly bank saw its stock price surge 28.5% to $22 in mid-week. This run-up was followed by a steep retracement, falling below $17 on Friday before ending the week just under $18. The bank is currently embroiled in the FTX collapse saga and reports emerged this week that it facilitated fund movements between Binance International and Binance.US.

Macro matters

The U.S. Labor Department this week published its consumer price index report for January. The report showed inflation rose 0.5% month-on-month, which put the year-on-year figure at 6.4%. This means U.S. inflation year-on-year has been on the decline for seven straight months.

Crypto tokens and stocks wobbled in the lead-up to the report but eventually tended to gain. Speculation in the crypto space has so far been largely unaffected by the increase of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S.