Bitcoin bulls eye fresh peaks after bucking global market swoon

[SINGAPORE] Animal spirits are stirring again for Bitcoin after the token surged about 25 per cent in the past seven days toward levels last seen five months ago.

The rally contrasts with the more pedestrian recent performance of traditional assets like stocks, bonds and gold in a period of angst over high inflation and slowing economic growth. Bitcoin was little changed at about US$51,300 as of 12.45pm in Singapore, about US$13,500 shy of its mid-April all-time high.

The Bitcoin advance has overcome China's ban on cryptocurrency transactions and turbulence around El Salvador's troubled rollout of the digital coin as legal tender.

Optimists point to the way crypto appears to be gaining traction on Wall Street as an asset class in its own right, as well as comments from US regulators that eased the worst fears about harsher oversight.

Bulls have shown "incredible resilience" and "all-time highs don't look too far away", Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote in a note.

Other digital coins have also been climbing: Ether, Binance Coin, Solana and Dogecoin are up sharply in the past seven days, according to tracker CoinGecko. Trading volumes for Bitcoin are two-thirds larger than Ether since the start of October, according to crypto exchange Kraken.

Now that Bitcoin has surpassed US$50,000, "we do expect this bull run to take it to near highs during the fourth quarter," Leah Wald, chief executive officer of Valkyrie Investments, a specialised alternative asset management firm, said in a Bloomberg QuickTake video.

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