After several days of trading flat around $42,000, Bitcoin finally started the new year with a surprise by posting a surge close to $46,000 for the first time since April 2022.
With BTCC's surge, altcoins also followed this bullish trend, with SOL and AVAX jumping double digits and the overall crypto market cap increasing by about $100 billion in 24 hours. After starting to rally in the last quarter of 2023, BTC calmed down over the holiday break and remained in a tight range between $42,000 and $43,000 for over a week. Moreover, this asset several times tried to break below the support line but managed to maintain its positive performance in the end.
However, that all changed earlier today. The crypto market started an upward move that resulted in a jump to the $44,000 level. Tuesday morning brought more joy for traders as BTC surged to and above $45,000 for the first time in nearly two years.
At the time of writing BTC peaked at $45,900 before returning to 45,769. Based on the movement, the community sees optimism in the market and is ready to push the price past the $46,000 level and beyond. This resulted in a huge growth in BTC's market cap, which is now close to $900 billion at CMC. Bitcoin's dominance over altcoins also increased to 50.9%.
Most altcoins are in the green today, including ETH (6%), BNB (2.5%), XRP (2.4%), ADA (5%), DOGE (5%), DOT (6%), and MATIC (5%) . However, there are also those who recorded more impressive gains. Among them, Solana and Avalanche. SOL has continued its recent surge and surged 13% to $115. AVAX is up 11% and is trading well above $40.
