Bitcoin set for 10.8% weekly gain after hitting new record high
Mar. 08, 2024 4:06 PM ET
By: Sinchita Mitra, SA News Editor
 Vertigo3d/iStock via Getty Images
Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) continued its bull run this week, as it rose 10.8% on a weekly basis, boosting its market cap to $1.36T.
The digital currency, which touched $69.2K, had briefly hit a new record high of $70.1K, before quickly paring gains in Friday morning trading, after the February jobs report strengthened bets the Federal Reserve will start interest-rate reductions in June.
The $70.1K surpassed the previous record high of $69.1K, which it had hit on Tuesday, for a short period of time.
Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, said, BTC has arrived at a critical juncture, and the entire (crypto) world is waiting for BTC to finally, convincingly, break that late 2021 high.
"From a technical point of view breaking to a new ath after a long consolidation or period trading below that level usually ignites strong demand," Kempenaer said, adding, "But, we are not there yet."
Stoking the bullish sentiment, net inflows into spot bitcoin ( BTC-USD) ETFs totaled ~$9.4B, with $965.5M coming in on March 5, marking one of its biggest one-session haul, data from CoinGlass showed
However, Tuesday's jump was short-lived, as BTC soon dropped 10% and eventually settled at $63.8K on the day, but managed to make a strong recovery the next day.
SA contributor, D Lombardo, called the halving event to be "overly-hyped" and asked investors to not fall for the false narrative, noting BTC is at a major mid-cycle top and a correction is likely.
Lombardo, however, said the long-term case for BTC is stronger than ever, adding, "miners aren’t producing enough to quench the never-ending demand from Spot ETFs, resulting in a chronic shortage. As Economics 101 would dictate: “less supply + rising demand = Moon.”
J.P. Morgan in a note said BTC is not likely to match gold's allocation in investors' portfolios in notional amounts, mainly due to its high volatility. It said gold is the most similar asset to compare BTC with, adding that it is 3.7 times more volatile than gold.
Notable News
MicroStrategy ( MSTR) announced on Wednesday the pricing of its private offering of convertible senior notes, with plans to use the funds raised from the sale for acquiring additional Bitcoins ( BTC-USD).
Marathon Digital ( MARA) on Tuesday said it mined about 833 bitcoins in February, compared to 1,084 Bitcoins in the previous month.
Binance ( BNB-USD) said Tuesday that some users had temporarily experienced issues when trying to withdraw their digital tokens from the cryptocurrency exchange, citing a technical error.
Riot Platforms ( RIOT) mined 418 Bitcoins ( BTC-USD) in February, down 20% from the previous month and 38% from a year before, it said on Tuesday.
Bitcoin, Ether prices
Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) inched up 2.22% at 4:01 pm ET on Friday, and Ether ( ETH-USD) was up ~0.4% to $3.9K.
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