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First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Busts Through $26K

The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for March 17, 2023.

Updated Mar 17, 2023, 8:07 p.m. Published Mar 17, 2023, 12:10 p.m.

This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.

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Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is back trading above $26,000 for the second time this week, up 7.5% in the last 24 hours. The coin has been trading between $24,000 and $26,700 over the past week. Investors who went away for a while are back and adding bitcoin, according to Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital. “We expect to see significant demand as bitcoin moves further past $25,000,” Thorn wrote in a note. Ether is up 5.1% in the past 24 hours and up 20% over the last seven days.

Bankrupt lender Genesis has requested a May 22 deadline for creditors to say how much they are owed by the company and June 27 for an auction, according to bankruptcy court filings dated Thursday. Bidders considering buying Genesis would have to show interest by May 5. The sale would comprise lenders Genesis Global Capital and Genesis Asia Pacific, as well as Genesis Global Trading, the last of which hasn't filed for bankruptcy. All three fall under the umbrella of Digital Currency Group, a crypto conglomerate that also owns CoinDesk.

Tokens related to artificial intelligence have had a strong week with the Graph’s GRT up 30% and SingularityNET (AGIX) up 45%. AI-related tokens have rallied following ChatGPT’s release of its latest version of the technology that powers the popular chatbot tool. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced the release in a blog post on Tuesday, stating the latest version can pass a simulated bar exam with a score at around the top 10% of test takers. SingularityNET is a decentralized AI marketplace running on blockchain, and The Graph is an open-sourced indexing platform used to collect, process and store data from various blockchain applications.

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The chart shows ether's bitcoin denominated price (ETH/BTC) has declined to its lowest level since last July.
Traders seem to be worried that Ethereum's impending Shanghai upgrade, which is set to open withdrawals of staked ether, could potentially create a significant supply overhang.
These fears are likely to keep sentiment in the ether market weak ahead of the upgrade, Bernstein said early this month, adding that the actual increase in supply after the upgrade is likely to be negligible on a daily basis.

Lyllah Ledesma

Lyllah Ledesma is a CoinDesk Markets reporter currently based in Europe. She holds a master's degree from New York University in Business and Economics and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of East Anglia. Lyllah holds bitcoin, ether and small amounts of other crypto assets.

Omkar Godbole

Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor on CoinDesk's Markets team based in Mumbai, holds a masters degree in Finance and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) member. Omkar previously worked at FXStreet, writing research on currency markets and as fundamental analyst at currency and commodities desk at Mumbai-based brokerage houses. Omkar holds small amounts of bitcoin, ether, BitTorrent, tron and dot.