Bitcoin (BTC) has managed to keep its head above the $37,200 price point after running up 2% on Sunday following an uneventful first half of the weekend.
The benchmark cryptocurrency is benefitting from a bearish unwind of the US dollar in the lead-up to Thanksgiving, with traders shifting gears into riskier asset classes and potentially greater near-term returns.
“It is too early to say whether this is genuine buying of risk assets or more just short-covering ahead of Thursday's US Thanksgiving public holiday,” UBS analysts said in a Monday research note. “However, it does look like the dollar can edge a little lower near-term.”
Bitcoin also appears to have gained some political support on the global stage following the election of Javier Milei in Argentina.
Labelled everything from libertarian and far-right to anarcho-capitalist and populist, Milei has called the central bank a “scam” and bitcoin "the return of money to its original creator, the private sector”.
However, unlike fellow Latin American populist Nayib Bukele, Milei has not expressed an intention of making bitcoin legal tender, instead favouring the dollarisation of the inflation-ravaged Argentine economy.
Bitcoin remains more than a third higher over the past six months – Source: tradingview.com
Elsewhere in the cryptocurrency markets, the second-largest digital asset Ethereum (ETH) shot up 2.5% on Sunday to cap off an extremely volatile weekly trading session.
Recent losses aside, the ETH/USDT pair could be approaching an inflection point, with the 50-day moving average (MA) poised to cross above the 200-day MA.
This so-called ‘golden cross’ is considered a bullish signal and could galvanise the bulls to push ether higher.
Looking across the broader altcoin space, Solana (SOL) has tailed off significantly following weeks of impressive gains on the spot market, while Ripple (XRP) has also entered a corrective phase.
Cardano (ADA) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have held onto single-digit gains over the past week.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at $1.42 trillion, with bitcoin dominance comfortably above 52%.
Read more on Proactive Investors AU
