It was far from a lazy Sunday for the cryptocurrency markets, with benchmark cryptocurrency bitcoin (BTC) posting its best daily gain against the US dollar in over a month.
In the space of less than a late-evening hour, the BTC/USDT pair jumped more than 3%, with further gains continuing this morning.
Bitcoin surpassed the $28,200 barrier for the first time in nearly six weeks, though it has since settled closer to the $28,100 mark.
Bitcoin has nearly recovered all losses from the past six months – Source: tradingview.com
Without any clear catalysts, bitcoin’s hefty surge is likely down to traders placing long bets on the first day of 2023’s last quarter following an extended period of low bitcoin prices.
The sudden price surge on the spot markets sent the futures market into a tizzy, with short-bitcoin positions getting wiped out to the tune of $38 million on Sunday alone.
US equities futures also rallied in Asia, offering further proof that a risk-on appetite could be on the cards in the final quarter.
Ethereum (ETH) marked higher on Sunday too, though any further price action was stemmed this morning, after six-week highs above $1,750 were cut back below $1,730.
Week on week, bitcoin and ether are 8% and 9.4% higher respectively.
Solana (SOL) tore ahead of the blue-chip altcoin competition after posting 25% worth of gains since this time last week, while other top-20 altcoins including BNB, Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Ripple (XRP) kept gains to the mid-to-high single digits.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation rallied 3% overnight, bringing the total to $1.11 trillion.
Bitcoin dominance also surged ahead, adding 45 basis points on a weekly basis to 50.4%.
Read more on Proactive Investors AU
