Bitcoin’s stealth rally past $45,000 erases its losses for the year

Bitcoin’s stealth rally past $45,000 erases its losses for the year

Stocks















Bloomberg

Bitcoin’s stealth rally over the past two weeks not only pushed it past a key level of $45,000 — it also put the world’s biggest cryptocurrency back in positive territory for the year.

The token rises to around $47,000 at 3:30 pm in Hong Kong, well above the $35,000-to-$45,000 range where it’s been stuck since early January. With the fresh gains, Bitcoin is now up about 1.4% for the year, compared with a 4.7% decline for the S&P 500.

If Bitcoin can keep breaking through “in a meaningful way,” it should gain a lot of upside momentum, said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co. Rick Bensignor, the president of Bensignor Investment Strategies, said in a note that Bitcoin is “on the verge of a 20% run higher.”

The coin has been stuck in a tight path as the Federal Reserve and other central banks remove some of the stimulus measures they put in place in response to the pandemic downturn. That means there’s less cash to go toward riskier assets, including crypto. In addition, digital currencies came under scrutiny with speculation swirling that they