Bitcoin (BTC) Touched $44K, Solana (SOL) Soars to 19-Month Peak Above $85 (Market Watch)

Bitcoin’s price saw another leg-up in the past 24 hours that pushed it to over $44,000 for the first time in over a year, but the asset has lost some traction and now stands below that level.

Solana has soared the most from the larger-cap alts, having added more than 10% daily and trading at a 19-month peak above $80.

BTC Back to $44K

After the relatively quiet weekend, bitcoin began the new week with a sharp price drop that drove it to $40,500 on Bitstamp on Monday. However, the bulls were quick to intervene and didn’t allow any further declines.

Instead, BTC started gaining traction and soared by almost three grand in hours. As a result, bitcoin jumped above $43,000.

Another brief retracement followed that saw the cryptocurrency dumping beneath $42,000, but it quickly rebounded, which was particularly evident on Wednesday.

This is when the asset skyrocketed to a 12-day high of $44,300. Nevertheless, it failed there and has returned to under $44,000 as of now. Being 2% up on the day means that its market cap has increased to over $850 billion, while its dominance over the altcoins stands tall at 52.3% on CMC.

SOL Shoots Up

It’s safe to say that Solana’s native token, and a big portion of its ecosystem, has been at the forefront of the recent price surges. The past 24 hours alone brought another massive pump for SOL (11%) that drove it to $85. This is the asset’s highest price tag since May 2022. Moreover, SOL surpassed XRP as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency.

Avalanche and Polkadot follow suit from the larger-cap alts. AVAX has soared by 8.5% and trades above $45, while DOT is close to $7.5 after a 6% daily increase.

More gains come from the likes of IoTeX (22%), PancakeSwap (20%), Near Protocol (16%), and Neo (11%).

The total crypto market cap has added $30 billion overnight and is close to $1.650 trillion on CMC.