By Carly Wanna
The crypto bulls are back — at least for now — with Bitcoin edging back toward the higher end of its monthslong trading range and smaller tokens such as Polygon, Litecoin and Solana outperforming the digital-asset benchmark.
Bitcoin rose as much as 5.2% to $21,292, pushing the largest cryptocurrency by market value above $21,000 briefly for the first time since Oct. 29. The token has been lingering around $20,000 since August. It is down more than 50% this year.
“All you need is one or two strong days to get people to say you’re going to get a year-end rally you don’t want to miss,” said Todd Sohn, managing director of technical strategy at Strategas Securities. “That creates the FOMO effect.”
Risk assets rallied worldwide on Friday as traders weighed mixed jobs figures and awaited next week’s inflation data for more clues on when the Federal Reserve would be able slow down its pace of rate hikes.
Smaller so-called altcoins like Solana and Avalanche have also advanced in the past two days of trading as a slate of headlines bolster hopes for institutional adoption of digital assets.
For example, Polygon surged 30% on Friday to post its biggest intraday gain in more than a year. Earlier this week, Meta gave more details on plans to let Instagram creators buy and sell nonfungible tokens on the Polygon blockchain.
Meanwhile, Dogecoin declined as much as 10.3%, pairing back some of the gains made amid Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter Inc.
Dueling forces are impacting crypto markets this week, according to Sohn. On one end, a weakening dollar and hopes that central banks could soon turn doveish have bolstered cryptocurrencies. But on the flip side, digital assets still need added liquidity to stage a true comeback, he said.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com.
