Bitcoin has smashed past $120,000, trading at $122,500 at the time of writing.
Interestingly though, bitcoin hasn’t yet created new all-time highs against other major currencies such as the euro, indicating that recent dollar weakness, as well as bitcoin demand, is contributing to the move higher, writes Simon Peters, cryptoasset market analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro.
Altcoins have seen a boost also. Total market capitalization excluding bitcoin has increased 15% from last week, up $173 billion to $1.33 trillion overall. We’re still some way off the all-time high for this metric though, $1.71 trillion last seen in November 2021, but moving in the right direction.
Looking forward to this week, all eyes will be on the US, specifically the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee ‘Crypto Week’, where the CLARITY Act, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act and the GENIUS Act will be considered.
Developments around these pieces of crypto legislation could provide a further tailwind to the current rally. We wait to see.
We also have CPI consumer price index and PPI producer price index inflation data from the US this week, which may cause some volatility.
BIGGEST MOVERS
$PENGU was the biggest mover last week, up 90%, as the US SEC officially acknowledged Canary Capital’s spot ETF application, igniting further interest in the token and Pudgy Penguins ecosystem, on top of the bullish sentiment that we’re currently seeing in the wider crypto market.
The floor price for Pudgy Penguins NFTs, that is the lowest price that an NFT in the collection can be bought for, increased 57% last week, currently 14.87 ethereum, or $45,008.
Similarly Lil Pudgys’ NFT floor price rose 50%, currently 1.74 ethereum or $5,262.
EYE-CATCHING STORIES
Spot bitcoin ETFs see second-highest daily inflow since their launch
US spot bitcoin ETFs saw their second-highest daily inflow last Thursday, $1.175 billion, indicating strong institutional demand for bitcoin exposure and helping to propel the bitcoin price to new all-time highs.
BlackRock’s IBIT spot bitcoin ETF also crossed the $80 billion AUM mark last week, becoming the fastest ETF to do so, in 374 days, about five times faster than the previous record held by $VOO.
As well as the spot bitcoin ETFs, other entities such as public and private companies who have adopted bitcoin treasury strategies continue to buy more bitcoin.
According to bitcointreasuries.net, the amount of bitcoin held in treasuries has increased by 2.43% in the last 30 days. Also 265 unique entities are now holding bitcoin, up from 240, 30 days ago.
Ant Group set to adopt USDC stablecoin into its blockchain platform
Chinese fintech firm Ant Group, an affiliate company of Alibaba, is set to adopt USDC into its blockchain platform once the stablecoin becomes compliant in the US, according to people familiar with the matter.
Ant Group owns Alipay, the world’s largest mobile payment platform serving over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants, and last year processed more than $1 trillion worth of transactions.
The collaboration with Circle is part of Ant Group’s wider ambitions to introduce more regulated cryptoassets onto its blockchain, which underpins its treasury management and cross-border payment services.
USDC is currently the second largest stablecoin by market capitalisation, $63.4 billion, 24% of the total $260 billion.
