Bitcoin rose above $44,000 briefly on Monday, continuing the momentum from the end of last week and the weekend.
The crypto was trading above its 50-day moving average Monday, for the first time since November, when the cryptocurrency climbed toward its all-time high. Bitcoin’s 50-day simple moving average stands at around $42,838, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Dow Jones
Katie Stockton, managing partner at research firm Fairlead Strategies, wrote in a Monday note that from a technical perspective, “an upturn in the weekly stochastics supports a breakout, which would target a Fibonacci level near $47.6K.”
Nicholas Cawley, strategist at DailyFX wrote that bitcoin could rise to over $46,000 as a so-called “bull flag” chart pattern forms, which is viewed as bullish. A break and close above $44,500 would “allow bitcoin to complete the bull flag formation,” Cawley wrote.
However, the recent gains look “more of a technical move rather than any fundamental shift,” Cawley wrote. “The recent push higher in Bitcoin has sent it into overbought territory and this needs to be negated to allow BTC to push higher.”
Investors will be watching a reading of consumer prices, the consumer-price index, or CPI report, which will be released Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The market is expecting that the Federal Reserve will begin a series of interest-rate increases starting at its next policy gathering in March but the level of inflation from the January CPI reading could help to determine the pace of tightening from central bank policy makers.
For other cryptocurrencies, ether
ETHUSD,
the world’s second largest digital asset, gained 4% in the past 24 hours, trading at around $3,121. The coin associated with Ripple Labs, XRP
XRPUSD,
advanced 16% to $0.78. Crypto startup Solana
SOLUSD,
rose to $120 with a 6% gain. Meme coins Shiba Inu
SHIBUSD,
jumped 49.5% over the past 24 hours at around $0.000034, while Dogecoin
DOGEUSD,
gained 10.6% to around $0.16.
