Bitcoin regains momentum toward $30,000
Bitcoin is mounting another attempt to surpass the closely-watched $30,000 level and memecoins extended their recent rally as risk appetite increases across global asset markets.
The largest cryptocurrency by market value rose as much as 2.8% to around $29,690 in New York trading hours. That has Bitcoin, which as been trading on either side of $30,000 for about a month, on pace for a second consecutive weekly increase. Ether, the second largest token, jumped by as much as 6.5%, fueled in part by renewed interest in some of the most speculative tokens, which often trade on the Ethereum blockchain.
Pepe, the token associated with an internet meme of a green anthropomorphic frog, more than doubled on Friday, according to data site CoinGecko. That has swelled the market value of the token to more than $1 billion, even that it still trades at a fraction of one cent.
“The market has taken notice of how all the meme-coin, token trading recently has contributed to gas usage and the burning of ETH,” Shiliang Tang, chief investment officer at digital-asset investment firm LedgerPrime, said in a direct message. Gas fees refer to the cost a user pays to make a transaction. “Burning” is a reference to a function in the Ethereum network where a portion of transactions fees, which is paid in Ether, will be destroyed.
Tang noted that almost 20,000 Ether, or nearly $40 million, was burned over the past week due to high activities on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. Twitter user @thiccythot_ pointed out that transactions on Uniswap associated with Pepe alone burned about 5,300 Ether, or roughly $10 million in value over the past three weeks. In total, about 50,734 Ether or more than $100 million in value were burned in the past week, according to data from the site ultrasound.money.ether
A rally in equities on Friday also helped the market sentiment, as regional banks surged and solid jobs figures eased fears of an economic recession.
Crypto-related stocks rallied. Coinbase Global jumped as much as 18%, the biggest daily increase since February, after the biggest US crypto trading platform posted higher-than-forecast revenue and a narrower loss for the first quarter. MicroStrategy, which posted a profit earlier in the week with the help of a tax benefit, gained for a second day.
