First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Hits $82K as Weekend Rally Extends

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CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,561.84 +2.14%

Bitcoin (BTC): $82,358.65 +3.65%

Ether (ETH): $3,201.51 +0.19%

S&P 500: 5,995.54 +0.38%

Gold: $2,659.68 -0.94%

Nikkei 225: 39,533.32 +0.08%

Bitcoin passed $80,000 for the first time on Sunday and topped $82,000 on Monday. BTC enjoyed an unusually busy weekend, rising over 4% amid trading volumes of almost $100 billion. Weekend pumps in the crypto market are seen as bullish indicators, given that professional traders and institutional investors are much less active. The positive sentiment extended into the new week, with BTC climbing as high as $82,394. Futures premiums on BTC-tracked products are soaring, indicating a bias for bullish bets. The popularity of the $80,000 call on Deribit points to potential dealer hedging around the key level.

Dogecoin and shiba inu led gains among major cryptocurrencies with price jumps of 22% and 12%, respectively, at the time of writing. DOGE flipped XRP and USDC to become the sixth-largest token by market cap. DOGE has jumped on renewed endorsements by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, pushing it 88% in the past 30 days. Over the weekend, ether climbed above $3,000 for the first time since early August in a sign it’s set to break out of its range-bound price action. SOL has also registered healthy gains, climbing over 4.5% in the last 24 hours on the back of some ebullient memecoin activity in its ecosystem.

U.S.-listed crypto equities saw significant gains in pre-market trading following BTC’s rally. MicroStrategy, which owns over 250,000 bitcoin, gained more than 11% to just above $300 per share. Copycat Semler Scientific surged 25% and is approaching a high for the year, while Coinbase added almost 17%. Marathon Holdings is leading advances among miners, rising almost 20%. The positive price action is helped by the 26,842 bitcoin held on its balance sheet, a level surpassed only by MicroStrategy. Other notable miner performances include Riot Platforms, Iris Energy and HIVE Digital Technologies, which are all up double digits.

– Omkar Godbole