Crypto Markets Add $100 Billion Daily as Bitcoin (BTC) Heads Toward $72K (Market Watch)

After trading quietly during the weekend, Bitcoin’s price initiated another leg up on Monday that drove it to a new all-time high of almost $72,000.

The altcoins have also turned green, with NEAR leading the pack with a massive 20% surge, followed by the likes of LINK and LTC.

BTC’s Latest ATH

The start of this Monday seems like a repeat of the events that transpired last week. Back then, BTC had a quiet weekend, and it stood at just under $62,000. Once the first day of the business week arrived, though, the cryptocurrency skyrocketed by several thousand USD by the end of it and was knocking on the ATH door from 2021.

It felt inevitable that the $69,044 level would fall, and it indeed did later on Tuesday. Then followed a massive rejection that pushed BTC south by approximately ten grand. The bulls stepped up at this point and recovered most losses by Friday. Another run-up came, and BTC jumped above $70,000 for the first time ever but was stopped in its tracks once more.

The weekend was a lot less volatile, but Bitcoin was still inching closer to $70,000. That level was decisively overcome earlier today when BTC spiked above it and went all the way up to $71,750 (as of now).

Its dominance over the alts has increased to 49.7%, while its total market cap is above $1.4 trillion now.

NEAR Steals the Show

Most larger-cap alts have also turned green on a daily scale. Ethereum is among the most modest gainers, having jumped by 2% and trading just inches above $4,000. Binance Coin sits at another multi-year peak at $530 after a 2% daily increase.

Chainlink, IMX, and Litecoin have surged by somewhere between 6-8% today. Nevertheless, NEAR Protocol’s native token has taken the main stage with a massive 20% increase. As a result, NEAR now trades well above $7.

The total crypto market cap has added over $100 billion in a day and about $200 billion in the past week and sits above $2.8 trillion for the first time in over two years.