The first full weekend of December was a rager for bitcoin (BTC), with the world’s largest cryptocurrency leaping above $40,000 for the first time in 20 months.
The gains continued on Monday, with the BTC/USDT pair ramping up another 3.5% in early trades.
At the time of writing, bitcoin was swapping for $41,380, bringing year-to-date performance to a walloping 150%.
Bitcoin’s impressive performance since early October has been partially due to a weaker US dollar, though broader macroeconomic factors such as peak interest rates across the West and impending spot-bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approvals are also playing into the bitcoin narrative.
Physical gold is also on a rip, hitting a new all-time high on Monday as the thought of peak rates sees capital flowing out of the money markets and into non-yielding assets.
Bitcoin still has a ways to go before reclaiming its all-time high of $67,500, though sentiment is positioned comfortably on the bullish side in the near term.
Though the market could potentially see some selling pressure if traders decided to exit their bitcoin positions and take profit, Binance’s order book shows a healthy buy-side wall above $40,000.
Bulls will also be eyeing up a Santa rally, the fabled seasonal uptick in year-end stock prices, which could filter through to bitcoin.
Bitcoin has added nearly 11% over the past seven days – Source: tradingview.com
Bitcoin dominance – a measure of its market capitalisation against the broader crypto markets – has surged forward to 53.75%, indicating a greater concentration of trading activity at the top end of the market.
With that being said, Ethereum (ETH) has an impressive weekend too, adding around 5% before climbing to a new year-to-date high of $2,252 this morning.
In the broader crypto space, Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Chainlink (CHAIN) and Polygon (MATUC) have all penned double-digit weekly gains, while BNB, Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA) have been more muted.
Global cryptocurrency market cap currently stands at $1.54 trillion.
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