The crypto rally resumed on Friday with bitcoin (BTC) notching its highest price in a month, while the world grappled with a major IT outage.
BTC started rising from $64,000 during the early U.S. trading hours and broke above $67,000 later in the day for the first time since June 17. The price increase was accompanied by strong trading volumes for BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT). At press time, the largest crypto asset changed hands slightly above $67,000 advancing 5.5% over the past 24 hours.
Solana (SOL) led among altcoin majors with an 8.5% increase over the same period, topping $170 for the first time since early June. The token outperformed the broad-based digital asset benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), which rose 4.3%.
Ethereum’s ether (ETH) reclaimed the $3,500 level, but underperformed with a 3% increase. The first spot-based ETH exchange-traded funds (ETF) in the U.S. will likely start trading on Tuesday next week, Friday regulatory filings by Cboe showed.
Cryptocurrencies slid lower earlier this week in tandem with a U.S. stock sell-off. However, Friday’s rally happened as major equity indexes continued their losing streak.
The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.8%, while the broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.6% as of 1 p.m. ET, while gold plummeted over 2% during the day following a fresh all-time earlier this week.
Charles Edwards, founder of crypto hedge fund Capriole Investments, took notice of bitcoin’s rapid surge coinciding with the U.S. traditional market opening, perhaps a sign of bidding from institutional investors.
“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?,” he posted on X.
Looking at a longer timeframe, bitcoin is trading around the midpoint of a multi-month sideways channel between $56,000 and $73,000. Spot prices might be range-bound in the near term, but traders are increasingly positioning for a breakout to new all-time highs towards the U.S. elections in November, digital asset hedge fund QCP said in a market update. QCP analysts noted strong demand for December $100,000 bitcoin call options from institutions.
Mads Eberhardt, crypto analyst at Steno Research, expressed a bullish view for the second half of the year for crypto assets, supported by multiple tailwinds including coming U.S. interest rate cuts, rising liquidity, regulatory clarity in Europe and rising chances of more crypto-friendly U.S. leadership.
“Bitcoin at $100,000. Ethereum at $6,500,” he said about his price targets.
Update (July 19, 20:25 UTC): Updates headline, story with latest prices. Adds paragraph with ether (ETH) price and Cboe filing about spot ETF trading.