Bitcoin’s fourth consecutive month of gains has some thinking that an extended bull run for the cryptocurrency could be coming soon.
The most popular cryptocurrency has ended every month since January higher than where it started, its longest stretch of positive monthly gains since 2021, according to Bloomberg. Bitcoin closed out April at about $29,200 after starting the month near $28,400, according to CoinMarketCap.
The cryptocurrency retreated from its Sunday close on Monday, dropping around 5% over the past 24 hours to $28,300, according to CoinMarketCap. The second most popular cryptocurrency, Ether, also dropped 5% to about $1,800.
A four-month run of gains has in the past been followed by an average increase of 260%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Such a jump would push Bitcoin past $100,000, compared with its all-time high of over $65,000 in November 2021.
The cryptocurrency had a rough 2022, falling to a low of about $15,700 in November amid the crypto bear market that plagued digital assets across the board. Since then, Bitcoin has been steadily rising, although it has stalled for several weeks between $27,000 and $30,000.
Some have pointed to Bitcoin’s “halving,” which will cut in half the rewards for mining a new block on the blockchain, as a sign that Bitcoin’s price will skyrocket next year, although this is not guaranteed.
Recently, the cryptocurrency has also received a boost from Ordinals, which are NFTs but on the Bitcoin blockchain. In Ethereum NFTs, the media tied to the NFTs typically aren’t stored on the blockchain itself, meanwhile Ordinals allow images, audio, and other media to be “inscribed” onto a satoshi, the smallest possible unit on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Bitcoin community has seized onto Ordinals as an opportunity to expand the blockchain beyond purely financial uses.
On Sunday, the blockchain experienced the highest number of transactions in its history, in part due to Ordinals, Blockworks reported. The blockchain reported more than 568,000 transactions on Sunday, according to BitInfoCharts, with about 300,000 of those being related to Ordinals, according to a Dune dashboard cited by Blockworks.
Still, Bitcoin faces challenges on its journey to match its 2021 high. On Monday, markets faltered after regulators seized the beleaguered First Republic Bank, which was then sold to JPMorgan Chase.
The Fed is expected to raise interest rates this week in a bid to fight inflation, despite warnings of an impending recession and GDP growth coming in lower than expected for the first quarter.