(Kitco News) – U.S. markets were closed for the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, which gave digital assets center stage, and they didn’t waste their time in the limelight, with Bitcoin (BTC) seeing a strong rally above $70k as crypto rode the wave of optimism that came in the wake of renewed political support.
Data provided by TradingView shows that after opening the session just below $68,500 overnight, BTC saw a rapid run-up to $69,246 shortly before 10:30 pm EDT, before bull lost momentum. Bitcoin then trended lower, bouncing off support near the $68,350 level a couple of times before hitting a session low of 68222.56 at 7:40 am EDT.
After that, the bulls once again took the lead, kicking off a run that has taken the top crypto through a rapid series of session highs, before finally breaking above $70,000 per token shortly after 11:30 am EDT.
Bitcoin saw a sharp pullback just before 4 pm EDT, twice testing support around $69,150 level before staging a minor recovery. At the time of writing, Bitcoin last traded at $69,328.19 for a gain of 1.28% on the 24-hour chart.
Bitcoin gets GOP boost
A significant portion of Bitcoin’s bullish momentum came after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced in a speech on Friday that if elected, he would guarantee the right to self-custody of crypto and would like to see tens of millions of American hodlers.
BREAKING: ?? Donald Trump says "I will ensure that the future of crypto and #Bitcoin will be made in the USA"
"I will support the right to self custody to the nations 50 million crypto holders" pic.twitter.com/OSfUL91McJ— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 26, 2024
The announcement was Trump’s most forceful pro-crypto statement yet, and it had all of crypto Twitter abuzz.
“This is surreal,” tweeted Anthony Pompliano of Pomp investments. “The leading Presidential candidate is explicitly saying he will make America the leader in bitcoin & crypto, while supporting the right to self-custody.”
“All the critics were wrong,” Pomp added. “The government won’t ban it, they’re embracing it.”
Crypto reporter and Bitgrow Lab founder Vivek cited recent CryptoQuant data to note that Bitcoin whales have been amassing tokens at a near-unprecedented rate.
#Bitcoin whales have been buying like never before ? pic.twitter.com/CRhjkcGugZ
— Vivek⚡️ (@Vivek4real_) May 26, 2024
And analyst Rekt Capital posted his latest assessment of the state of progress for the crypto bull market, which he believes has achieved less than 40% of its projected gains.
#BTC Bull Market Progress:
▓▓▓░░░░░░░ 37.8%
(Progress bar based on standard Halving Cycles)$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ZeDQHPBaT6— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) May 25, 2024
Memecoins gain on Memorial Day
The majority of the top 100 altcoins rose in value on Monday as Bitcoin’s strength and Ether’s ETF approvals breathed new energy into the broader digital assets ecosystem.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Floki Inu (FLOKI) led the gainers with an increase of 18.45% on the 24-hour chart, followed by Bonk (BONK) which rose 10.44%, and dogwifhat (WIF), which gained 9.73%.
Lido DAO Token (LDO) led the losers with a decline of -5.40%, followed by a -4.04% drop for Ondo (ONDO) and a decline of -3.33% for Gnosis (GNO).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.59 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 52.69%.
