Bitcoin Bull Run Temporarily Halted as Altcoin Season Kicks In: This Week’s Crypto Recap

The past seven days saw the total cryptocurrency market capitalization increase by close to $20 billion, and it currently stands at $1.75 trillion. The interesting bit is that all of the gains come on the back of an increase in the altcoin market, rather than Bitcoin, which failed to perform as well.

In fact, Bitcoin’s price dropped by around 2.1% in the past week, trading at $42,750 at the time of this writing. Its dominance is down substantially, further adding to the premise of an ongoing altseason.

And while the price struggled, BTC saw positive developments across other avenues. For example, the number of bitcoins that exited centralized exchanges on Wednesday this week exceeded $1.19 billion (28K BTC). For reference, the last time this number was higher was back on December 14th, 2022.

Exchange outflows are usually perceived as positive for the market since they alleviate immediate selling pressure.

Elsewhere, Bitcoin’s total hashrate also skyrocketed to a new all-time high of 544 exahashes this week. Increasing hashrate means improved network security and greater involvement on behalf of miners.

But enough about Bitcoin, let’s have a look at the altcoin market.

For once, Solana is undoubtedly amongst the week’s best performers from the top 10 cryptocurrencies by means of total market cap. SOL’s price shot up by about 15%, exceeding $100 and leading the altcoin rally.

Binance Coin seems to be the one that surprised most as it exploded by 17% in the last seven days, reclaiming its spot as the 4th largest coin and trading above $300 for the first time in a while.

Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), and TRON (TRX) are all charting very small movements over the same period. Avalanche (AVAX), however, failed to capitalize on the ongoing altcoin boom and declined by 9%.

All in all, the market’s been incredibly dynamic over the past seven days, and it’s very interesting to see how it will develop in the upcoming 2024.

Market Data

Market Cap: $1.754T | 24H Vol: $109B | BTC Dominance: 47.7%

BTC: $42,750 (-2.1%) | ETH: $2,351 (+0.6%) | BNB: $314 (+16.4%)

MicroStrategy Concludes 2023 with a Massive $615.7 Million Bitcoin Purchase. MicroStrategy’s conviction in Bitcoin doesn’t waver. The company has wrapped up its 2023 buys with another massive purchase worth $615.7 million. This brings its total BTC holdings to a whopping 189,150.

Crypto Market Cap to Hit $3.2T as Global Owners Surge to 950M in 2024: Bitfinex. Bitfinex is one of the veteran cryptocurrency exchanges and in its latest market report, the company notes that it anticipates the total crypto market cap to grow to some $3.2 trillion. This will be in line with a forecasted increase in global users, who should reach up to 950 million.

Bitcoin’s Hash Rate Hits All-Time High on Christmas, But It’s Not All Good News. While its price struggles to overcome a notable resistance at around $44K, Bitcoin’s hashrate has no problems soaring to new highs. In fact, the metric reached a whopping 544 exahashes earlier this week, marking a fresh ATH.

Avalanche Foundation to Invest in Meme Coins with $100 Million NFT Incubator Fund. Meme coins seem to be the name of the game during the past month or so. Their popularity has surged so much that the Avalanche Foundation will be investing in various meme coins based on metrics such as user engagement and count, and so forth.

Bullish? This Hasn’t Happened to Bitcoin (BTC) in Over a Year. For the first time in over a year, the number of BTC that left exchanges soared to 28,000. The combined worth is around $1.19 billion – a sign widely interpreted as bullish by many industry analysts.

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Measures to Simplify PoS Design, ETH Surges. Vitalik Buterin proposed measures to reduce the load on the Ethereum network. The effort should broadly simplify the governing proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.