Bitcoin rose to a new one-year high on Friday, above $38,000
Yuichiro Chin | Moment | Getty Images
Crypto prices have recovered from a big drop earlier in the week, with Bitcoin hitting a new 2023 high on Friday.
Bitcoin rose to $38,350.00 for the first time since May 2022, according to Coin Metrics. It was last up 1% at $37,946.01 and quickly gained 3.9% by the end of the week.
meanwhile, ether is back above the key psychological level of $2,000, last trading more than 2.5% higher at $2,122.98. The second-largest token by market cap is outperforming the crypto market this week, quickly gaining more than 8%.
Salana, the big performer for the year — up more than 476% compared to Bitcoin’s 130% — lagged the major tokens this week. That’s about right for a week.
Bitcoin broke above $38,000 and hit a new high in 2023.
Investors are digesting the end of Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s reign at the world’s largest exchange, Binance, after he agreed to plead guilty earlier this week to federal criminal charges brought by the US Department of Justice. The news comes less than a month after FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty in federal court of fraud and conspiracy.
While Binance is the most significant liquidity pool for crypto trading, many see the exchange settlement as a necessary development to allow the crypto industry, which is still recovering from the collapse of FTX in 2022, to move forward. With the conclusion of the Binance investigation, some say it could even clear the way for the approval of a Bitcoin ETF, which many investors believe will be a major catalyst that will send Bitcoin to significant new highs.
Traders are also weighing minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, which were also released on Binance’s settlement day and showed officials showed no appetite for interest rate cuts anytime soon.
Coinbase, Binance’s main competitor, also hit a 2023 high on Friday. It last traded 5.4% higher at $115.14, also at this level for the first time since May 2022.
Elsewhere in Crypto Stocks, Bitcoin Proxy Micro strategy grew by 2.6%. Bitcoin miners also jumped. The biggest profit came from Iris energy and CleanSparkwhich advanced by 10% and 11% respectively.
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