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Bitcoin crosses $95,000 for first time since February

It’s off to the races this Monday for bitcoin, which crossed $95,000 for the first time since February 24.

As Michael Saylor tends to do, following a teasing post on X, “Stay humble. Stack sats,” the Strategy cofounder said Monday morning the company acquired “15,355 BTC for ~$1.42 billion at ~$92,737 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 13.7% YTD 2025.”

Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder, now has 553,555 bitcoin, worth roughly $52 billion at today’s prices.

Things are shaping up well for bitcoin, which has been on an upward trajectory since last week.

Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered Bank, wrote in a Monday note that bitcoin “is headed for the next leg higher.”

“We expect a strategic asset reallocation away from US assets to trigger the next sharp upswing in bitcoin in the coming months,” he said.

He predicts bitcoin will reach a “fresh all-time high of $120k in Q2. Then onto my $200k end-year forecast,” which isn’t quite as bullish as Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest projection of $2.4 million by 2023, but still more than double its current price.

According to him, several factors are supporting the bullish view:

“US Treasury term premium (which has a close correlation to BTC) is at a 12-year high. Time-of-day analysis suggests that US-based investors may be seeking non-US assets. Meanwhile, Bitcoin accumulation by ‘whales’ (major holders) has been strong.”

The record ETF flows from last week is another bullish indicator for bitcoin.

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Altcoin trading activity has lost its mojo

Non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies have seen their trading volume plummet in the past five months. The combined trading volume of ethereum, XRP, solana, dogecoin, SUI, and chainlink has decreased by 60% since crypto’s October 10 liquidation event, according to Thomas Probst, a research analyst at crypto markets data provider Kaiko.

Main Altcoins Trading Volume in USD
The trading volume of ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, SUI, and LINK.

For all altcoins, spot trading volume on Binance has declined between 80% and 85% to $7.7 billion, while altcoin volume on other exchanges has dropped to $18.8 billion, down from a range of $63 billion to $91 billion in October, a Friday report from Decrypt found, citing data from CryptoQuant.

“This trend may be explained by a contraction in market liquidity over the same period,” Probst told Sherwood News. “This phenomenon is also reflected in the average 1% market depth, which stood at approximately $2.6 million before the October 10 crash and is now closer to $1.7 million when aggregated across ETH, XRP, SOL, SUI, and LINK.” 

Market depth is used by investors and traders to gauge the scale of liquidity in a market. 1% market depth refers to the amount of liquidity needed to move the market by 1%. 

CoinGlass’s Altcoin Season Index, a measure to assess the performance of non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, has been sitting above 50 this week, suggesting that the current market is neither in a bitcoin dominant phase nor an altcoin season.

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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

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