Bitcoin Goes Into Price Discovery, Skyrockets Past $72,000

Another day brings another all-time high.

Bitcoin surged as high as $72,211 on Monday, according to Coingecko, the highest ever. That represents a 3.6% jump on the day.

Technical analysts say at these prices the largest cryptocurrency has entered “price discovery,” meaning there are no data points to predict its next resistance levels.

The network’s market cap continues to grow, now at $1.4 trillion, placing it one place ahead of silver at $1.3 trillion and Meta at $1.2 trillion. Bitcoin now ranks 7th for all assets by market cap.

ETFs and Microstrategy

Spot Bitcoin ETFs are the undeniable driver of the current Bitcoin rally

It took the nine funds – led by BlackRock – two months to accumulate $55 billion in assets under management, with total volumes exceeding $110 billion — numbers that ETF analyst Eric Balchunas claims are “simply absurd.”

But the ETFs aren’t the only drivers.

Microstrategy continues to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

The company acquired 12,000 BTC for $820 million, bringing its total BTC under management to 205,000 bitcoin or roughly $14 billion dollars, according to the firm’s chairman, Michael Saylor.

With an average buy price of $33,700, Saylor and his company have unrealized profits of $7.7 billion. Microstrategy’s stock, $MSTR, has also gone near vertical, now valued at $1,550, a threefold increase in its price since early February 2024.

ETH Rallies

Ethereum, the second-largest crypto, trades for $4,052, with a 3.7% gain on the day. It has been on a better streak than Bitcoin, snatching 62% gains over the past thirty days versus Bitcoin’s 53%.

Price catalysts for Ethereum include the Dencun upgrade and the potential spot ETH ETF approval in May.

The Dencun upgrade, scheduled for Mar. 13, is expected to drastically reduce transaction fees on Ethereum, especially on L2s. It achieves the drop in gas by introducing lightweight sets of data known as Binary Large Objects (blobs) via EIP-4844, also called proto-danksharding.

Trump Touts Crypto

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also jumped onboard crypto today, claiming on CNBC he is “having fun with it.”

Trump appeared today on a Squawk Box interview, saying that crypto has “taken on a life,” and that he allows people to “sometimes pay in bitcoin.” The 45th president also took advantage of the onscreen time to shill his NFT collection.

Whether today’s claims are part of his campaign or a genuine pro-crypto stance by the presidential candidate is yet to be seen–especially considering he has been a relentless defender of “a single currency, the dollar.”

But crypto in its totality seems to fall under his good graces, which, in light of November’s election, has the industry awaiting a hopefully positive relationship with a potential second Trump administration.