Bitcoin (BTC) added 2.5% on Friday morning to bring the world’s largest cryptocurrency near $29,100 against the dollar.
Bitcoin’s strong performance in the Asian trading session was helped in part by Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) better-than-expected earnings, with revenue of around $95 billion for the iPhone maker.
Apple shares have risen 2.5% in pre-market trading on Nasdaq.
Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) also delivered decent results, managing to limit first-quarter losses through cost-cutting measures and diversified revenue lines, sending shares over 9% higher in after-hours trading.
Apple and Coinbase’s solid market performance is likely to have sparked interest in other tech-adjacent stocks and asset classes, including bitcoin.
On a more macro level, analysts note concerns about trading volumes, with Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA stating that “bitcoin is not seeing the same amount of flows as it did early on during all the banking drama with Silicon Valley Bank”.
Lower volumes may contribute to bitcoin’s inability to break above 30k again, except for a brief period in April.
Instead, the BTC/USDT pair appears to be anchored to the 28k to 29k range, and could remain so barring a strong catalyzing event.
Bitcoin (BTC) appears to be anchored below 30k for now – Source: currency.com
Binance’s order book shows strong selling pressure at 30k, while open interest in the futures market shows a dead-even split between buy and sell side orders
Ethereum was 0.9% higher this morning, failing to break above US$1,900, which has served as the bears’ defensive positive position for the past two weeks.
Ethereum’s open interest is also evenly split between buyers and sellers.
Bitcoin and ether are both down around 1.5% over the past seven days.
Altcoin off-season continues
One thing that is certain is that interest in the cryptocurrency markets is heavily skewed towards bitcoin, ether and a handful of others.
Of the top 50 cryptocurrencies in the last 90 days, 40 have given investors negative returns.
Only bitcoin, ether, Ripple (XRP), Tron (TRX) and a handful of small-cap outliers remain in the green, with bitcoin adding 22% and ether adding 10%.
Ripple (XRP) Boosted by Promising News Emerging from SEC Litigation – Source: blockchaincenter.net
Cryptocurrency investors are likely engaged in a flight to quality, while avoiding volatile and volatile altcoins with no proven returns.
An easing of monetary policy by the major central banks may, however, lead to an increasing appetite for riskier assets in the near to medium term.
Currently, the global cryptocurrency market cap is currently US$1.19tn after falling 0.15% overnight, while the total value locked in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space increased by 0.12% to over US$49bn overnight.
