An outage took over Microsoft-based machines on Friday, rendering numerous industries like aviation, railways, and finance dysfunctional or functional at limited capabilities. It happened as CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, released a new update, which went bad. No hackers were involved in the mishap.
With that, BTC rallied to over $67,000, starting the day at around $64,000, marking a 5.5% increase in 24 hours. Simultaneously, BlackRock’s spot BTC ETF, the Ishares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), observed massive trade volumes. It witnessed $340 million inflows in the first hour of trading. Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) recorded $143 million in inflows in the same period.
Among altcoins, SOL took the lead, growing by 8.5% and crossing the $170 mark—a price point it had not seen since June. ETH underperformed compared to the gains registered by SOL, only spiking by 3.3%. However, it managed to cross $3,500 again.
The cryptocurrency market rose on Friday compared to falling early in the week due to massive tech stock sell-offs in the US. Nevertheless, the asset class collectively rallied as equities indices did not stop dropping in value. The S&P 500 index dropped by 0.6% the same day, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell by 0.8%, and gold declined by over 2%.
Crypto enthusiasts and figures observed institutional crypto products gaining major traction as the Microsoft outage, aroused by a single point of failure, occurred and the US traditional market opened.
Charles Edwards, Capriole Investments founder, posted on X, “The market hours for IBIT open at 9.30am ET. Within minutes, Bitcoin shot up from $64K, now above $65K. Did some institution just wake up and decide Bitcoin is a safe haven decentralized store of value as global tech and banking systems fail from Microsoft’s blue screen of death?”
Others appreciated decentralized technology for its resistance against single points of failure.
