Bitcoin Climbs 3% to Retake $68K With Solana Outperforming, Ether Showing Relative Weakness

Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap led CoinDesk 20 gains, each rising more than 5%.

Cryptocurrencies rebounded on Thursday after a slight downturn since bitcoin's (BTC) failed attempt to regain $70,000 early on Monday.

The price of bitcoin rose 2.9% in the past 24 hours to reach $68,100 at press time. Ether (ETH) continued to underperform bitcoin and the broader market, gaining just 1.1% and reaching a new 3.5 year low relative to the price of BTC. Solana (SOL) continued to outpace both, rising 3.0% and marking a new record high relative to ether.

Ether is now notably just over $2,500, but below the max pain price – the level at which most options expire worthless – of $2,600 for Deribit's options expiry on Oct. 25.

Cryptocurrencies rallied on Thursday, reversing a slight downturn that had set in after bitcoin's failed attempt to regain $70,000 early on Monday.

The CoinDesk 20 - an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization excluding stablecoins and exchange coins - was up over 2.7% in the past 24 hours, with Uniswap's (UNI) and bitcoin cash (BCH) leading the charge, each gaining more than 5%.

Bitcoin at press time was changing hands at $68,100, ahead 2.9% over the past 24 hours. Ether continued to underperform bitcoin and the broader market, gaining just 1.1% and reaching a new 3.5 year low relative to the price of BTC. Solana continued to outpace both, rising 3.0% and marking a new record high relative to ether.

Ether is now notably just over $2,500, but below the max pain price – the level at which most options expire worthless – of $2,600 for Deribit's options expiry on Oct. 25.

Ether's troubles

Ether continues to lag behind bitcoin and solana in terms of performance. In the past month, ether is down 2.1%, while bitcoin is up 7.4% and solana has added 18%.

“I think from a pure on-chain perspective there has generally been an outperformance of network activity in both Bitcoin and Solana vis-à-vis Ethereum,” Andre Dragosch, European Head of Research at crypto investment firm Bitwise, told CoinDesk.

“Transaction count on Bitcoin has outpaced that of Ethereum, which tends to be highly correlated with the relative performance,” Dragosch said, noting that there had been “stronger on-chain capital inflows into bitcoin [than] ether.”

“In this context, it’s not so much a weakness of ether but rather a strength of bitcoin,” Dragosch added.

The nominal market capitalization difference between bitcoin and ether has reached a new all-time high. With bitcoin at a $1.33 trillion market cap and ether at $303.6 billion, the difference is now over $1 trillion for the first time ever.

Solana's market capitalization dominance, currently at 3.64% of the crypto market, is approaching its old record of 3.70%.

Crypto stocks gain, led by MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy (MSTR) added another 10% on Thursday, reaching its strongest level since the dot com bubble 25 years ago.

The company is in a unique position because it was completely misunderstood, well-followed capital advisor Punter Jeff told CoinDesk.

“Never before has a company converted its balance sheet entirely into a finite asset, let alone a revolutionary asset like Bitcoin,” Jeff said. “It positions MicroStrategy as a pioneer in corporate finance while establishing a significant competitive moat; it holds over 2.25 times more Bitcoin than all other publicly traded companies combined that have Bitcoin on their balance sheets.”

Other crypto names posting gains included Coinbase (COIN), adding 5% and bitcoin miner Riot Platforms (RIOT) rising 4.3%.

EDITED BY

As the senior analyst at CoinDesk, James specializes in Bitcoin and the macro environment. Previously, his role as a research analyst at Swiss hedge fund Saidler & Co. introduced him to on-chain analytics. He monitors ETFs, spot and futures volumes, and flows to understand Bitcoin.

Tom Carreras is a markets reporter for CoinDesk. He holds BTC, ETH and SOL above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.