The digital asset market saw a quick reversal Monday with bitcoin (BTC) erasing an early decline to nearly $65,000 and returning to the $67,000 level for the time in three days.
The $65,000 area was the same level from which bitcoin bounced during last Friday’s big shakeout. At press time, it was changing hands at $66,800, up 0.9% over the past 24 hours.
Most altcoins also bounced but lagged behind BTC on the daily timeframe. Ether (ETH) was still in the red nursing a 0.7% decline during the same period, while dogecoin (DOGE), shiba inu (SHIB) and native tokens of layer-1 networks Avalanche (AVAX) and Near (NEAR) were down 2%-5%.
Ripple’s XRP (XRP) outperformed most crypto majors with its 5% daily gain, and recently was the only cryptocurrency – apart from BTC – in the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index with a positive daily performance. Several smaller, publicly-listed bitcoin miners enjoyed double-digit gains. Hive Digital Technologies (HIVE), TeraWulf (WULF), Canaan (CAN) rallied 10%-20% during the day, while large-cap miners Marathon Digital (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) were up 4%.
Zooming out to traditional markets, the broad-market S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 continued their climb to new all-time highs and were up 0.9% and 1.2%, respectively.
Bitcoin has been chopping sideways in a tight range below its all-time record prices since March, flushing out excess leverage in liquidation cascades, and surely causing some impatience from market participants, particularly the “number go up” crowd. Underscoring the boring price action, bitcoin’s 30-day realized volatility has dropped to near historic low levels, Alex Thorn, research head of digital asset investment firm Galaxy, pointed out in an X post.
Derivatives trading network Paradigm said that the crypto market is “losing momentum” in lack of catalysts to bring traders to action. “Despite positive predictions flying around, a new market needs real news to move forward and keep traction,” it said in a Telegram update earlier today.
Trader and market analyst Bob Loukas, however, tempered expectations for the short-term, noting that BTC is “clearly” in its declining phase of its daily cycle and could revisit the lower $60,000 area before a more sustainable uptrend.