Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
Bitcoin is still trading comfortably above the $50,000 mark, which it soared past at the start of the week. The biggest digital coin by market cap is now priced at $51,959, having risen by more than 10% over seven days.
The asset started off strong when it hit $50K on Monday for the first time since December 2021. The price rise, analysts told Decrypt, was down to big investors hoarding the cryptocurrency and a renewed interest from Wall Street in the tech industry.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in January approved ten spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Since their approval, the asset’s price dipped at first, but has since made a comeback.
The price of Bitcoin did drop on Valentine’s Day after a report from the U.S. Labor Department showed that inflation was higher than expected last month.
But the hearbreak was temporary, and the “digital gold” continued to rise through Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, spending most of its time bumping up against $52K.
As always, the rest of the crypto market surged along with Bitcoin’s rise. Ethereum, the second biggest digital asset, is now up more than 11% over the past week. The price of ETH stands at $2,792.
Meanwhile Solana, the fifth biggest asset, shot up and knocked Binance’s BNB Coin from the fourth spot—albeit temporarily. Solana is now trading for $109.71, closing about where it started the week.
Meme coins also had a moment: Bonk, Pepe, and Dogwifhat all rose and are still up significantly over the past seven days.
Investors seem mostly focused on Bitcoin, though, as the long-awaited halving event fast approaches, and institutional interest in the newly approved ETFs brings a flood of capital into the space.
How long will it last?
Prices as of 7:30 am GMT. Edited by Ryan Ozawa.