Bitcoin has finally broken out of a window it has been trading within since the start of the year, rising to a three-month price high on Monday.
A 5 per cent overnight surge took BTC above $47,000 for the first time since early January, building on a price rally that has seen it rise more than $10,000 over the last two weeks.
The latest gains were mirrored among other leading cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL), pushing the overall crypto market above $2 trillion.
Analysts have attributed the positive movements to various bullish trends that have been forming throughout March, including a dwindling supply of bitcoin on crypto exchanges.
There have also been rumours that other countries may be making moves to follow El Salvador by adopting bitcoin as a legal form of tender.
You can follow all the latest news, analysis and expert price predictions in our live blog below.
Key points
Bitcoin price breaks through ‘key resistance level’
13:15 , Anthony Cuthbertson
Since early January bitcoin had been stuck trading between a relatively narrow price window of between $34,000 and $44,000, so it’s a big move today to finally break out of it.
We’ve heard from Simon Peters, a market analyst at the online trading platform eToro, to hear his thoughts on the latest developments:
The token broke through a key resistance level last night, and has now hit a three-month high. It is now close to reversing all of its losses from 2022. With the price of BTC through $45,000 all eyes will be on what range it settles in this week.
The strong rebound for the majority of major cryptocurrencies is particularly encouraging at the moment in the face of rising interest rates and global geopolitical uncertainty – both of which have the tendency to send investors away from risk assets and toward safe havens.
Interest rates in particular can have the effect of draining markets of capital, so to see crypto performing strongly despite this is a testament to the innate strengths investors now see in the future case for cryptocurrencies.
Simon Peters, eToro
Bitcoin price headed for $100k?
10:20 , Anthony Cuthbertson
Popular crypto market analyst PlanB, who gained over 1 million followers on Twitter last year on the strength of his Stock-to-Flow (S2F) price prediction model, has suggested that the latest rally could be the one that finally fulfils the model.
According to one version of the pseudonymous Dutch analyst’s S2F model, BTC was meant to hit six figures before the end of last year before plateauing and consolidating. Instead it peaked at close to $69,000 in November before crashing all the way back down towards $30,000. After two previous record-breaking rallies, will it be third time lucky?
Bitcoin price gains push crypto market above $2 trillion
10:08 , Anthony Cuthbertson
The latest price gains for bitcoin have helped push the overall crypto market above $2 trillion for the first time since early February.
It still remains a way off the all-time high of close to $3 trillion that it reached last November, but it is now up more than $500 billion in less than two months and appears to still be climbing.
The only one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies not to contribute to the recent rally is Terra (LUNA), which saw a modest loss of just over 1 per cent over the last week.
Hello and welcome…
09:51 , Anthony Cuthbertson
to The Independent’s live coverage of the crypto market.
With leading cryptocurrencies currently surging in price, we’ll be bringing you all the latest news, analysis and expert price predictions for BTC, Ethereum (ETH) and other leading cryptocurrencies.
