Bitcoin Explodes to $24K as Ethereum Consolidates Above $1,500 (Market Watch)

Although Bitcoin’s price was lagging over the past few days compared to Ethereum and some other altcoins, it caught up over the past 24 hours. BTC exploded by over 7.6% and touched $24K.

Bitcoin Soars Towards $24K

Over the past 24 hours, BTC managed to finally catch up to Ethereum and its ecosystem, soaring by over 7.6%. This saw its price almost touch $24K before retracing to where it’s currently trading at $23,500.

As seen in the chart above, Bitcoin is attempting to break above the previously established range. To do so, it must consolidate and remain above $22,500. If successful, this could potentially open up the way towards $27,000 and even higher.

In any case, the cryptocurrency managed to close seven out of eight daily candles in the green. Today would be the 8th candle if it remains positive.

The increased volatility also caused a lot of liquidated positions over the past 24 hours. In total, they amount to slightly less than $300 million, $160 million of which were BTC positions. The largest single liquidation order happened on FTX, and it was also a BTC perpetual contract with a face value of $3.24 million.

Ethereum Consolidates Above $1,500

Meanwhile, the ETH rally that we saw over the past week is seemingly cooling off. This is to be expected, given that the cryptocurrency increased by 50% in seven days. Over the past 24 hours, ETH is up 1.6% and is still trading above $1,500.

As seen in the above heatmap, the majority of the cryptocurrency market is painted green. Some of the more notable gainers include Cardano (ADA) – up 10.7% on the day, as well as FLOW – up 11% on the day.

On the other hand, Ethereum Classic seems to have lost the most as it’s down some 2% in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency fear and greed index shows that the market is currently in a state of fear, which is an improvement from the previous “extreme fear” phase. As a matter of fact, the last time the market sentiment was this high was back on April 10th.