Bitcoin – the world’s number one digital currency by market cap – rose to $25,000 per unit in mid-February, thus giving traders newfound hope that the crypto market can indeed recover from its 2022 lows.
Bitcoin Just Keeps Jumping
2022 was the worst year on record for the digital currency space. At the end of November in 2021, the price of bitcoin had risen to $68,000 per unit, the highest it’s ever been. Everyone was confident the space was going to reach all kinds of pinnacles the following year. They believed crypto was at the top of the financial ladder and that nothing could bring it down. Boy, were they wrong!
2022 got off to a rocky start when in January of that year, the price of BTC fell by roughly $20K, and bitcoin was trading in the mid to high $40,000 range. If this wasn’t bad enough, BTC eventually fell to $30K, then $20K, and then by the end of the year, the asset had lost more than 70 percent of its value to trade in the mid-$16K range.
The space was marred by bankruptcies galore and the fraudulent activities of FTX and its former executive Sam Bankman-Fried. Right now, SBF is awaiting trial for allegedly using customer funds to pay off loans taken out by his other company Alameda Research and to purchase Bahamian real estate.
Bitcoin wasn’t the only currency to drop in the previous 12 months. Many additional assets followed, and the crypto space lost more than $2 trillion in valuation. It was a sad and depressing situation.
Now, however, 2023 is bringing a degree of healing to the arena. The world’s primary cryptocurrency has been incurring small, incremental bursts along the way, first rising to $17K. From there, it hit $21,000, then $23K. In mid-February, as mentioned, the currency rose to about $25,000, thus incurring a near 50 percent rise since the end of 2022, and while many analysts are suggesting that traders not get too excited yet, there is certainly an air of positivity and joy flowing throughout the arena.
Vijay Ayyar – vice president of corporate development at the international crypto exchange Luno – explained in an interview:
The market bottomed last November and has turned bullish. We are gaining in momentum here, and any bad news is being shrugged off. Typical signs that the market believes the worst is over.
Is the Worst Over?
Yuya Hasegawa – an analyst at Japanese crypto firm Bitcoin Bank – also chimed in, saying:
Wednesday’s crypto rally was a bit of a surprise, but one thing stood out. It was led by bitcoin. The current regulatory environment surely looks like a headwind for the crypto market, but it seems like some money is moving from altcoins to bitcoin, since bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that is labeled [a] ‘commodity’ by the SEC.
