The cryptocurrency has rallied for 11 straight days
© Getty Images / Siegfried Layda
Bitcoin surged above $20,000 on Saturday for the first time in two months, according to data from CoinDesk.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has rallied for 11 straight days to trade at $20,960 at around 06:40 GMT, a change of 11.3% over the past 24 hours. The token has displayed the best weekly performance since March.
Bitcoin has not been priced this high since before the implosion of FTX, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange at the time of its insolvency, in early November.
Overall, Bitcoin has gained more than 20% since the start of the year. However, it is still trading at around 71% lower than its all-time high of just over $69,000.
“$20,000 once [was] deemed a disturbing low but now potentially represents a sign of a revival,” Craig Erlam, a market analyst at Oanda, told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin plunged last year amid bankruptcies and collapses in the sector. The majority of other crypto tokens followed Bitcoin’s lead and nosedived as well. Amid the current Bitcoin rally, the broader crypto market has also started to show signs of growth, with the total market capitalization of the sector currently standing at $979 billion, a 3.8% rise in the last 24 hours.
Analysts say the rally is a result of investors regaining confidence amid cooling inflation and expectations that the Federal Reserve will no longer need to hike interest rates.
However, “other issues like China’s reopening, the pace of US economic and corporate earnings growth, and positive real rates will jostle for investors’ attention,” according to Nicholas Colas of the market analysis firm DataTrek Research.
“None of this guarantees that 2023 will be a good year for risk assets, but it does say it will look a lot more normal than last year.”
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