Bitcoin Reaches $80,000 Mark as ‘Extreme Greed’ Grips the Market

• BTC-USD
• NVDA
• AMD

Bitcoin is stepping back into the spotlight and the crowds are cheering.

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency topped $80,000 overnight, a level it hasn’t touched since May. Between federal regulators’ efforts to fill in the rulemaking gaps the Clarity Act has left behind, and spot bitcoin ETFs’ six consecutive days of net inflows, per Farside Investors, market conditions would appear to be swinging from crypto famine to crypto feast.

CoinMarketCap’s Crypto Fear and Greed Index was recently flashing “extreme greed” from last week’s “neutral.” Meanwhile, the latest chart making the rounds in crypto circles on social media is a 10-year gains table that ranks bitcoin at the top, followed by hot AI stocks Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD). Indeed, the cryptocurrency’s latest surge has pushed it to the top, with a 13,429% gain compared to Nvidia’s 13,156% over that period through Aug. 23.

What You Need to Know

• Bitcoin surged past $80,000, its highest level since May, amid growing market optimism.

• Spot bitcoin ETFs saw six consecutive days of net inflows, signaling increased investor interest.

• Strategy created a $1.6 billion cash pool to respond to bitcoin market volatility.

Strategy (MSTR) wasn’t doing much in the crypto market last week, although surging bitcoin prices might’ve been the ideal time to capitalize on its stockpile of some 840,447 coins valued at around $66 billion at recent prices. Instead, Strategy sold more of its common stock, which got a boost alongside bitcoin last week, for about $2 billion.

In a report yesterday, Fundstrat Head of Digital Asset Strategy Sean Farrell observed that “Strategy has now gone two consecutive weeks with zero BTC activity,” and that would mark a “meaningful departure from the historical playbook.”

However, the company announced yesterday that it established a pool of $1.6 billion, called USD Cash, that is “intended to allow management to respond more quickly to market conditions, including dislocations in the markets for bitcoin or Strategy’s securities,” and not to be confused with its existing USD Reserve, which recently held $5.1 billion, designated to pay dividends on its preferreds and interest accruing on its debt, filings show. 

Farrell likened the cash pool to “plunge protection,” which he said he expected Strategy to tap when either bitcoin or its preferred stocks took a dive. Recall Strategy’s Stretch preferred slid to the low $70s in June, causing alarm as the gap to its par price of $100 blew out.

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Source: finance.yahoo.com