Cardano, Solana, and Chainlink hit 2023 highs as Bitcoin consolidates below $44k

(Kitco News) – Altseason is in full swing as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to consolidate below $44,000, with multiple blue-chip tokens recording double-digit gains on Friday to hit fresh 2023 highs amid the early stages of a bull market cycle.

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Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Chainlink (LINK) are but a few of the tokens surging higher to end the week, as speculation about the approval of the first spot BTC ETF continues to entice crypto traders to engage with the market.

At the time of writing, ADA is up 25.3% on the 24-hour chart and trading at $0.565, its highest price since August 2022. SOL has increased 10.25% to trade at $72.40, and LINK increased 10.5% to hit $17.32. These are the highest price levels for SOL and LINK since April 2022.

ADA vs. SOL vs. LINK 30-min chart. Source: TradingView

While altcoins are seeing big gains, the real story continues to be the performance of Bitcoin, which hit a 2023 high of $45,000 earlier in the week and looks poised to extend its climb as ETF speculation ramps up.

“BTC’s value increased by over $5,500 (15%) since [last week] as it resumed its upward trajectory after consolidating near the top for a few weeks,” said Rachel Lin, co-founder and CEO of SynFutures. “This week’s performance was the best since late October, when BTC broke above 30,000.”

BTC/USD Chart by TradingView

“And it’s not just Bitcoin; among the other top 10 coins, Ethereum (ETH) is up 13%, Cardano is up 43%, Dogecoin (SOGE) is up 18%, and Avalanche (AVAX) is up 25%,” she said.

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“Despite the strong performance of some altcoins, the rally was primarily led by the premier cryptocurrency, as its dominance reached 55% this week,” Lin noted. “Currently, the ETH/BTC pair remains at around 0.05, a historical support zone for this pair. If this level holds, Bitcoin’s dominance may decline in the coming days. However, a break below could lead to BTC increasing higher at a faster pace.”

ETH/BTC 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

“The recent surge has propelled Bitcoin above the $40,000 resistance level, enabling Ethereum to surpass $2,100 and the total altcoin market cap to reach $700 billion,” she said. “Therefore, this week’s performance also heavily undermines the idea that we are still in a bear market rally.”

And the data shows that this is not just a one-off rally as “fundamentals largely support the price action,” Lin said. “This week, we saw the DeFi TVL surpass $50 billion, the French bank Societe Generale announced the launch of its stablecoin on Bitstamp, and daily active user numbers continue to increase steadily on most blockchains.”

As for where BTC is headed in the near term, market analyst Credible Crypto said he is “still expecting that we sweep our local BTC lows,” but thinks the downside is limited after that.

BTC/USD 5-minute chart. Source: X