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Bitcoin Breaks Above $40K

After a weekend of choppy trade, the popular crypto began a sizable move higher as the U.S. returned to work on Monday morning.

Updated May 11, 2023, 3:39 p.m. Published Feb 28, 2022, 3:17 p.m.
(CoinDesk archives)
(CoinDesk archives)

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, regained the key psychological threshold of $40,000 even as the situation with respect to Ukraine continued to deteriorate.

"The move to isolate and cripple Russia's economy seems to be reacted positively by the market at the moment," said Lennard Neo, analyst at Stack Funds.

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fell to as low as $37,000 over the weekend as Russian President Putin put his country's nuclear forces on alert, and the West amped up what it hopes will be crippling financial sanctions. The crypto, however, began moving higher earlier this morning, including a jump from $38,000 to $39,500 over the course of a few minutes just before U.S. stocks opened their session.

At press time, BTC was trading at around $41,105.

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Laurent Kssis, a crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) expert and director of CEC Capital, said technical and proprietary signals are strong to hold the $41,000 position for the cryptocurrency. Kssis added that "overnight we should see some appreciation even narrowly." He also noted that the average transaction value in dollars for bitcoin has rallied 10% in the last 2 hours, which "means investors are taking on larger bets in bitcoin which has helped confidence building."

Possibly helping sentiment this morning is unconfirmed chatter that Russia is exploring a digital "one world, one currency" for trade.

Bitcoin above $40,000
Bitcoin above $40,000

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Exchange Review - March 2025

Exchange Review March 2025

CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.

What to know:

Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.

  • Trading Volumes Decline for Third Consecutive Month: Combined spot and derivatives trading volume on centralized exchanges fell by 6.24% to $6.79tn in March 2025, reaching the lowest level since October. Both spot and derivatives markets recorded their third consecutive monthly decline, falling 14.1% and 2.56% to $1.98tn and $4.81tn respectively.
  • Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions. 
  • Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.

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