The bull market has returned, and BTC has exceeded $31,000. On April 14, Bitcoin surpassed $31,000 as bulls anticipated altcoins would soon follow. TradingView data captured new 10-month highs for BTC/USD on Bitstamp at $31,035.
After a period of consolidation preceding the release of new macroeconomic data from the United States, the pair rose gradually the day prior. In the same period, the price of ether increased by 13.16% to $2,100. ETH increased by 6.48% during the same period to $1,996.
BTC tops charts ahead of the weekend effect
The crypto market and global economy have experienced an eventful week. Bitcoin scaled past $31k for the first time since June 2022, days after the blockchain surpassed 1 million Ordinals inscriptions and generated over $4.8 million in network fees. Ordinals are analogous to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin network and allow users to mint images, videos, text, and even video games.
The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) released on Wednesday showed cooler-than-expected numbers, as inflation rose 5% on the year in March but fell from 6% in February, marking the smallest annual increase since May 2021.
While BTC did not respond immediately, the most recent uptick strengthened market participants’ convictions regarding continued strength and a reversal of the long-term decline. Popular crypto trader Tony nevertheless advised potential long position entries to wait until new support levels are confirmed.
Overnight, U.S. equities rose in response to softer readings for the U.S. producer price index and initial jobless claims, bolstering optimism that the Federal Reserve may soon end its year-long cycle of raising interest rates to combat inflation.
According to market analysts, the deceleration of inflation may encourage more investors and hedge funds to purchase BTC.
Altcoin season is underway – led by ETH
After Ethereum completed the Shanghai upgrade on Wednesday, enabling staking withdrawals for the first time, investor sentiment increased. Ether surpassed the US$2,000 threshold for the first time since August last year. This puts to rest initial concerns that Ether withdrawals would add selling pressure to the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world.
Even if Ether were unstaked, it would not necessarily imply that people would sell it, as it could be used for other DeFi investments. Ether has eclipsed Bitcoin as the crypto market continues to recover this year. Despite this, crypto traders remain vigilant, as the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade only occurred on Wednesday.
According to data from Nansen, approximately 868,728 Ether coins are awaiting a full exit, a fraction of the more than 17 million Ether locked up for staking. This year, digital assets have partially recovered from a $1.5 trillion crash in 2022 that precipitated a series of scandals and blowups, including the failure of the FTX exchange.
In addition, the ether (ETH) options market has seen more activity than BTC in the past 24 hours for the first time in 2023. Options are derivative contracts that grant the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase the underlying asset at a predetermined price by a specified date.
A call option confers the right to purchase, whereas a put option grants the right to sell. Call and put options are utilized by traders to hedge their spot/futures market exposure and acquire an asymmetric payout. The positive reversal of the short-term and long-term options skew reveals the increased demand for ether calls.
Credible Crypto analysts acknowledged that Bitcoin was “in the driver’s seat in the med-term” and that BTC price action would need to cool before it could stimulate rapid altcoin growth.
However, references to “altseason” were prevalent throughout the day, including from former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.
Similarly, financial analyst Tedtalksmacro declared altseason “underway” after noting that the total altcoin market capitalization increased by $62 billion in two weeks. Others referred variously to “mini altseason” and “altseason 2.0,” arguing that gains on altcoins should follow Bitcoin-led gains.
Cardano rose 8.12% on the day to US$0.437 and 15.27% for the week after Cardano Foundation launched the alpha phase of Aiken on Thursday. Aiken is an open-source smart contract language and toolchain designed to simplify the development of smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain.
The total crypto market capitalization increased by 3.98% to $1.28 trillion over the past 24 hours, while trading volume increased by 30.12% to $58.95 billion.
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/btc-surges-past-31k-in-bull-market/