Bitcoin (BTC) Stalls Below $44K, Optimism (OP) Skyrockets 25% Daily (Weekend Watch)

Bitcoin spiked to well above $44,000 on Friday, but its move was quickly put to a halt and has since struggled to come anywhere close to that level.

Most altcoins are in the red today, with AVAX and DOT dropping the most from the larger-cap alts. In contrast, OP has gone on a tear once again.

BTC Fails at $44K

The primary cryptocurrency had a rocky start to the business week, as it slipped to $40,500 on Monday. However, that was short-lived as the bulls quickly interfered and propelled a price surge that drove the asset to over $43,000 on the next day.

Another retracement came, which was followed by one more leg up that pushed BTC to over $44,000 on Wednesday. It couldn’t sustain its run but went on the offensive once again on Friday. This time, the cryptocurrency charted its highest price tag since December 9 at $44,400.

This turned out to be a false breakout, though. Bitcoin lost the momentum almost immediately and has returned to $43,500, where it stands now as well.

Its market capitalization remains at just over $850 billion, and its dominance over the alts has regained some traction, currently standing at 51.5%.

OP Soars Above $3

CryptoPotato reported the positive developments around the Optimism network that happened this year, including the massive increase in traction and user count. All this pushed the native token’s price quite a bit in the past few days. In fact, OP is up again by an impressive percentage (25%) and trades close to $3.3 now.

The other notable gainers from the top 100 include PEPE (15%), ELF (12%), ARB (12%), APT (9%), and GRT (10%).

In contrast, most larger-cap alts trade in the red now. This includes AVAX (-5%) and Polkadot (-4%), which have dropped the most. Nevertheless, BNB, XRP, ADA, LINK, and TON are also struggling today.

The total crypto market cap has declined slightly over the past day, and it is still above $1.650 trillion on CMC.