Bitcoin Price Bounces Back to $66,000 Following Weekend Crash

The crypto market is showing signs of recovery following a crash that saw Bitcoin plunge below $63,000 over the weekend.

At time of publication, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 3.6% on the day, trading at around $66,610, per data from CoinGecko. However, it remains down over 7% on the week, from a weekly high of over $72,000.

The wider crypto market has recovered alongside the price of Bitcoin, with all of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap (barring stablecoins) up over the past day. The market cap of all cryptocurrencies is up 4.2% to $2.54 trillion.

Among the top 10 cryptocurrencies, Solana (SOL) leads the pack, up 7.9%, closely followed by Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, up 7.2%, and Toncoin (TON), up 6.8%.

The crypto market’s weekend tumble came amid wider market upheavals, as tensions escalated in the Middle East between Iran and Israel. Investors flocked to safe haven assets like gold, while more volatile assets such as crypto trended down.

The spot gold price spiked to a yearly high of $2,443/oz on Friday, per data from Yahoo! Finance, amid anticipation of an Iranian strike on Israel. That strike took place on 13 April, with almost all of the 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran being intercepted by Israel’s military.

Following the attacks, the broader market appears to have shrugged off fears of a wider escalation, as Iran deemed the matter “concluded” and U.S. President Joe Biden urged Israel to show restraint. Oil prices retreated Monday after reaching their highest level since October on Friday in anticipation of Iran’s attack.

As well as macro geopolitical trends, Bitcoin also has its upcoming block reward halving to contend with.

Earlier in the month, the implied volatility for Bitcoin options spiked, with Kaiko Research analysts suggesting that “expectations for near-term volatility are rising” in a recent report. Implied volatility increases indicate that market participants are less confident about the direction of prices, argued Kaiko Research analyst Adam McCarthy, a sentiment that appears to have been borne out over the past few days.