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Bitcoin and other cryptos were rallying along with stocks on Thursday.
Dreamstime
Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies rose on Thursday, with smaller tokens or “altcoins” seeing the biggest gains, as a wider return to risk-sensitive assets among investors boosted the crypto space.
Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, was up 2% over the past 24 hours to $43,000 according to data from CoinDesk, touching its highest point since the beginning of March.
Smaller peer
ether
was even more buoyant, rising 3% and holding above the psychologically-important $3,000 mark at $3,050. The token underpinning the Ethereum blockchain network is trading at its highest point since mid-February.
Bitcoin and ether remain well off all-time highs of $68,990 and $4,865, respectively, reached in early November.
“Bitcoin is stuck above the $40,000 level and that is a good thing for long-term investors,” said Edward Moya, an analyst at broker Oanda, in a note late Wednesday.
Gains were even more pronounced among altcoins.
Cardano
surged 17% as
solana
rose 9% and
uniswap
moved 5% higher.
“Meme” cryptos dogecoin and shiba inu—called that because they are mostly based on internet jokes rather than significant blockchain projects—also enjoyed gains, with
dogecoin
spiking 15% and
shiba inu
ticking up 6%.
Bitcoin and its peers should, theoretically, trade independently from mainstream financial markets, but have recently shown themselves to be correlated with other risk-sensitive assets like stocks. That trend was continuing, with gains in the crypto space mirroring the action in the stock market.
Digital assets broadly moved lower on Wednesday, as did stocks, but both asset classes were widely rallying as investors watched the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war, which has roiled markets in the past month.
Leaders from NATO including President Joe Biden are meeting in Europe amid expectations that the Western military alliance will deploy troops to countries in Central and Eastern Europe. There will also be a summit of both the G7 group of countries and the European Union, which Biden will also attend. Attention will center on whether new sanctions on Russia, and particularly its energy exports, could be rolled out.
Before Bitcoin and other digital assets had rallied late Wednesday and early Thursday, Moya had said that “Bitcoin should remain a sideways trade until Wall Street makes up its mind as to whether equities can continue to perform well with all the geopolitical uncertainty at hand.”
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com