(Kitco News) – Financial markets started the week in the green, with Bitcoin (BTC) briefly spiking above $92,000 while gold inched higher and stocks looked to regain lost ground after sliding lower last week.
The sell-off last week came after the Federal Reserve signaled it was in no rush to slash rates amidst robust economic growth and a solid job scene, which put pressure on risk assets and helped put a bid under for gold.
After rallying over the weekend and continuing to push higher on Monday, the yellow metal currently trades at $2,611.30 per ounce for a gain of 1.91% on the session.
Stocks rallied higher during morning trading but pared their gains in the afternoon. At the market close, the S&P and Nasdaq finished higher, up 0.39% and 0.60%, respectively, while the Dow lost 0.13%.
“This AM, BTC sprinted to match last Friday’s ceiling of 92k, only to dip under the 90k mark—a hot zone lately,” noted analysts at Secure Digital Markets. “Meanwhile, SOL punched above $240, marking a three-year high, while BTC caught its breath, stealing the show in today's session.”
Data provided by TradingView shows that after a spike to $92,705, profit-taking dropped BTC to a daily low of $89,717 before bulls pushed it back above $91,800.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
With Bitcoin continuing to hold above $90,000 while stocks see volatile trading, analysts at Secure Digital Markets noted that “BTC’s correlation with the stock market is getting looser by the day.”
“In '24, BTC and the Nasdaq only moved in lockstep 50% of the time,” they said. “We’ve seen 1:1 correlation back in '21 and '22 when the macro scene was center stage. Post-March, though, while Nasdaq has been hitting fresh highs, BTC's been treading water. Since the election results, BTC’s been on a tear as Nasdaq plateaued. Currently, the 30-day correlation’s chilled to 0.45, signaling BTC might be breaking free as it climbs the ranks to become the seventh largest asset by market cap.”
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $91,630, an increase of 2.52% on the 24-hour chart.
Pathway to $200,000
With Bitcoin consolidating above $90,000, analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein outlined the upcoming catalysts that could propel its price to their cycle target of $200,000 in 2025.
“We are entering a stage where we expect intrigue will turn to pain for the Bitcoin bears,” analysts led by Gautam Chhugani said in a Monday note to clients. “Bitcoin to $100K seems around the corner, and our $200K Bitcoin target [by the end of] 2025 now looks not as delusional.”
The bullish outlook comes as Donald Trump’s transition team has nominated Bitcoin advocates for top roles, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Health and Secretary of Defense, respectively. Market watchers are also closely watching his decision on nominating a new Securities and Exchange Commission Chair to replace Gary Gensler, as well as his nomination for Treasury Secretary, the analysts noted.
Polymarket bettors currently put their money on Trump selecting either hedge fund manager Scott Bessent or Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick for Treasury Secretary.
Lutnick’s odds rose in recent days after Elon Musk and RFK Jr. endorsed him. “Bitcoin is the currency of freedom, a hedge against inflation for middle-class Americans, a remedy against the dollar’s downgrade from the world’s reserve currency and the offramp from a ruinous national debt,” RFK Jr. posted to X on Saturday. “Bitcoin will have no stronger advocate than Howard Lutnik.”
“Scott is favored by broader equity markets as better positioned on macro and fiscal stabilization, but Lutnick is seen as a stronger Bitcoin bull,” Chhugani said. “Regardless, we expect the SEC Chair and Treasury position to be filled by a pro-crypto candidate and that the market should remain positive, regardless of specific appointments.”
Another key catalyst is Trump’s recommendation for the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, the analysts said. They believe political momentum toward its creation is now underway but warned that it could require a longer legislative process if it involves material purchases of Bitcoin every year.
“Demand for Bitcoin this cycle is led by institutions, corporates, and retail,” the analysts said. “We believe the next Bitcoin cycle will be sovereign led and the political seeds for a sovereign-led market are being sown today. The political winds of change are favoring candidates that prefer crypto deregulation and are against potential surveillance from a CBDC.”
Trump has also promised to help establish the U.S. as a Bitcoin mining “powerhouse,” they noted, which includes improvements to energy policy for mining and AI data centers. He also pledged to shut down ‘Operation Choke Point 2.0,’ establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, and has backed a potential markets structure bill that would push crypto regulation more towards CFTC oversight and eliminate the “regulation by enforcement” approach by SEC, they added.
“As [these] regulatory catalysts play out, we would expect a new-found confidence in the crypto bull market, reflected in not just higher Bitcoin prices but overall crypto market cap impacting prices of ETH, SOL, and leading digital assets,” the analysts said. They suggested that this could allow tokens that faced challenges in the previous regulatory environment to start restructuring their tokenomics to include project fees and cashflows as sources of value accrual.
“We expect registration of crypto securities to be streamlined and crypto tokens to become acceptable investments for institutional investors,” they argued. “We would expect creation of active crypto token funds by leading asset managers, moving the frontier from passive crypto ETFs today.”
On the demand side of the equation, the analysts noted that the total spot BTC ETF assets under management now stand at $92 billion, with a net inflow rate over the last few weeks of around $1.7 billion per week.
“We believe we are done with the Trump election trade here. However, in our view a ‘new crypto regulatory era’ is far from being priced in. We believe investors should continue holding Bitcoin equity proxies for longer horizons ~12-18 months at least,” they said. “With most institutional investors re-examining their anti-crypto stance, we have a long journey of fresh structural allocations to this market. If you are long, we expect you will be on the right side of Bitcoin history.”
Altcoins rally as Bitcoin consolidates
Bitcoin’s consolidation prompted many traders to focus on altcoins, leading to 90% of the tokens in the 200 recording gains on Monday.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Tezos (XTX) was the top performer, gaining 49.2%, followed by increases of 41.8% and 25.5% for Hedera (HBAR) and Iota (IOTA), respectively. Recent high-flying meme coins led the losers, with Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) falling by 13.9%, cat in a dogs world declining by 7.3%, and Popcat (POPCAT) sliding by 6.5%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $3.08 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 58.8%.
