Banking Crisis Sees Bitcoin Market Cap Rise By $26 Billion
Today March 20, has been eventful in the Bitcoin and crypto market. Some top coins and altcoins have recorded gains in their seven days prices. While BTC is up by 3.47% in 24 hours, its seven days gains stand at 27.93%. On the other hand, Ethereum has gained 12.82% in 7 days even though it is losing in 24 hours price.
Surprisingly, the banking crisis could not deter BTC bulls from increasing prices. Instead, the events led to a positive trend reversal for the digital asset. The interest Bitcoin gained spiked its price to a 9-month high gain and market cap by $26 billion.
BTC Price Spiked Amid Ongoing Banking Crisis
Bitcoin chart on the price tracker shows it recorded impressive gains earlier today, hitting $28,554.07 before retracing to the current price of $27,851. At its peak today, the market cap gained an additional 46.50 billion. This price gain is a new 9-month high since June 13, 2022.
Many Bitcoin supporters usually state that it is digital gold, a store of value during global financial turmoil. But BTC is outperforming gold recently as it has gained up to 70% this 2023 while the latter has gained 9%.
The number one crypto is setting its pace as usual while other coins follow behind. Today’s price performance shows BTC gains while many altcoins lose. For instance, Ethereum, the second crypto, is losing instead of gaining on the last day.
Others, including BNB, XRP, ADA, MATIC, DOGE, BUSD, SHIB, LTC, etc., are all down in 24 hours. But as BTC gains, WBTC also gains and shows a 3.49% gain in 24 hours and a 27.29% gain in 7 days.
What’s Driving Bitcoin Rally
The banking crisis is one of the major factors pushing the recent BTC rally. As Silvergate, Silicon Valley, and Signature banks collapsed, many investors started losing trust in the traditional banking systems.
Even though the US feds announced funding to support the banks in meeting depositors’ demands, the fear is yet to lessen. Many people are concerned that the US banking system is fragile and prone to fail unexpectedly.
A report from economists on how a bank run could crash 190 US banks further exacerbated the situation. The analysts discovered that 10% of existing banks had lesser capitalization than Silicon Valley Bank. Also, 10% of the US banks have more considerable unrecognized losses than SVB. However, the shuttered bank had high uninsured leverage, plus losses, leading to its crash.
Unfortunately, the economists compared the SVB issue with other banks, discovering that many more banks are already at risk. This increasing distrust in the banking sector’s stability has pushed more investors into the bitcoin market.
Featured image from Pexels and chart from Tradingview.com