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The price of Bitcoin shot up to its highest point so far this year as investors considered remarks made by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, which suggested that interest rates would remain unchanged.
The biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization extended its rally on Friday, reaching $39,000 on the Coinbase crypto exchange.
With its recent surge, Bitcoin has reached its greatest value since May 2022, right before the cryptocurrency sector was rocked and prices started a gradual slide due to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.
As 2023 draws to a close, cryptocurrency speculators are focused on the possibility that Bitcoin may reach $40,000, since the largest digital asset has more than doubled in value in the year.
Bitcoin has increased by more than 133% so far this year, outpacing gains in many other traditional sectors as investors turned to riskier assets.
The hope among traders and the cryptocurrency community as a whole that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may soon approve the first exchange-traded fund directly linked to Bitcoin is driving up prices.
Bitcoin price path cleared for $40,000
Bitcoin nearly scraped $39,000, according to on-chain analytics firm Santiment, on the news that the U.S. Fed interest rates might remain unchanged until at least 2024.
With this move, Santiment believes that Bitcoin's path has already been cleared for a $40,000 price.
Adding to this positivity is the fact that attention has increasingly been on BTC instead of altcoins, which, according to Santiment, represents "enough fear typically needed for prices to continue rising."
Tomiwabold OlajideSantiment observed that as interest in altcoins wanes, Bitcoin's social dominance has increased in just one month.
At the time of writing, BTC was up 0.78% in the last 24 hours to $38,782, reaching intraday highs of $38,848 in Saturday's trading session.
Alex Dovbnya
U.Today Editorial Team
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin