- Bitcoin makes quiet gains for 5 consecutive days without much fanfare and even as other risk assets have been hit with elevated volatility
- Bitcoin continues to surprise with its rise in the face of multiple sources of uncertainty, from central bank policy tightening to geopolitical risks in Ukraine
In sharp contrast to the typically rapid and large-scale moves in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin’s latest ascent has been marked by something typically not associated with the nascent asset class – a slow move higher.
Rising for a fifth consecutive day, Bitcoin is now on its longest (albeit it measured) winning streak since last September, just ahead of the cryptocurrency hitting an all-time-high as investors begin to fall in love again with risk assets (just not Meta stock).
Bitcoin now trades around US$44,000 at the time of writing, leading other cryptocurrencies higher as well.
While global markets have been whipsawed in recent weeks as investors swing from risk-on to risk-off against a backdrop of conflicting indicators, from central bank hawkishness to signs that the U.S. economy is on a tear, Bitcoin has generally trodden quietly upwards.
And while some have termed Bitcoin’s precipitous fall from near US$69,000 last November to around US$44,000 now as a “Crypto Winter,” it’s probably too early to call.
Unlike in 2018, when there were no institutional investors even considering cryptocurrencies, let alone adding them to their balance sheet, the roster of high-profile names bullish on Bitcoin has only continued to grow.
This past week, audit giant KPMG revealed that its Canadian office had added Bitcoin and Ether to its corporate treasury as part of a commitment to emerging technologies and asset classes, becoming just the latest of a string of high-profile companies to back cryptocurrencies.
Based on its current trajectory, Bitcoin could test the US$45,000 level of resistance, with Monday’s performance pushing the cryptocurrency above its 50-day moving average for the first time in over two months.
But the strengthening correlation between Bitcoin and tech stocks, in particular the Nasdaq 100 index, means that what’s bad for those assets could potentially be bad for Bitcoin as well.
Investors remain on tenterhooks with lingering uncertainty on multiple fronts, including the speed and aggressiveness of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy tightening, inflation and job data and the Russian standoff in Ukraine.
