This Week in Coins: Bitcoin Hits 18-Month High After Sleepy Week, Ethereum Rallies

Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.

Crypto markets had a sleepy week—until Friday. Bitcoin had barely budged on Thanksgiving but the next day it hit an 18-month high, touching $38,000 per coin.

The last time it hit that level was before the collapse of crypto mega project Terra in May 2022 which led to a fall in the price of every coin and token and the bankruptcy of major digital asset companies.

Bitcoin is today trading for $37,751, flat over 24-hours. Over the week, it’s up about 3%.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer who famously bought Bitcoin only to then bash it even said that people should buy up the cryptocurrency again.

A surge of cash into crypto investment products from big money investors is helping push up the price of the asset—and the rest of the market.

Ethereum also hit an 18-month high before dipping again on Friday. It’s right now trading for $2,079, having risen 6.5% in seven days.

Solana, which was on a tear for most of November, slowed right down: the coin is now priced at $58.59. That’s a movement of less than 2% over 24 hours and basically flat for the week.

Also, the original meme coin Dogecoin—which is the 10th biggest digital asset by market cap—is also up 1.3% in the past day, having shed nearly 3% of its value over the week.

It’s not just digital coins and tokens that had a good week. Interest in traditional crypto stocks surged. Coinbase’s shares also shot up on Friday; by the time trading had closed, Nasdaq’s COIN was priced at $115.54 per share—over 6% over 24 hours.

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MicroStrategy—which trades as MTSR and is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin—also shot up. Its shares are at $520.24 a pop right now. They haven’t been that high since December 2021.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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