“Uptober,” the wordplay on crypto’s historically bullish month of October, is so far living up to its name as bitcoin (BTC) pushed towards new all-time highs and altcoins also caught a bid.
After briefly spiking above $125,000 and retreating on Sunday, BTC followed through on Monday, surging to a fresh record of $126,223 during the U.S. trading session. BTC changed hands around $125,200 recently, up 1.5% over the past 24 hours.
While the dollar’s weakness has helped the rally to new highs, the largest crypto now has clinched to new highs in euro terms crossing 106,000 EUR and surpassing its January peak, while breaking its mid-August peak in Swiss franc (99,642 CHF), TradingView data shows.
Bitcoin’s strength extended across the crypto market. Ethereum’s ether (ETH) advanced 4% to hit $4,700, its strongest price in more than three weeks, leading the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index higher. Popular memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE) and the native token of layer-1 network BNB (BNB), closely linked to exchange giant Binance, gained 6%-6%.
Crypto stocks posted mixed results on Monday, with retail trading platform Robinhood (HOOD) falling 3% after Galaxy Digital unveiled GalaxyOne, a new crypto trading platform that mirrors Robinhood’s core offering. The announcement sent Galaxy Digital (GLXY) shares up 7%, as investors bet on the firm’s move to compete directly in the crypto brokerage space.
Elsewhere, crypto-linked companies including Coinbase (COIN), Circle (CRCL) and Michael Saylor’s parent company Strategy (MTSR) all closed roughly 2% higher. Their performance aligned with broader gains in the crypto market, where the CoinDesk 20 Index showed most cryptos saw modest upward moves.
The biggest gains came from mining stocks, which surged on news that OpenAI struck a deal to buy tens of billions of dollars worth of AI chips from AMD. The deal could give OpenAI up to a 10% stake in the chipmaker, a move that sent ripples through other AI-exposed sectors.
Marathon Digital (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Cleanspark (CLSK) each gained around 10%, driven by optimism around data center demand and possibly boosted further by bitcoin’s rally earlier in the day.
Perfect storm for BTC
Bitcoin’s rally is “fueled by a perfect storm of macroeconomic tailwinds,” said Jean-David Péquignot, CCO of Deribit, the options trading venue that was recently acquired by Coinbase (COIN).
The U.S. government shutdown is driving debasement trades into perceived hard assets such as gold and BTC, strong inflows into BTC ETFs coupled with dwindling spot supplies on exchanges are feeding a “self-reinforcing bull cycle,” he said in a Monday update.
The technicals also point higher, he added, with BTC’s double-bottom breakout pointing to short-term targets of $128,000–$130,000, with possible upside to $138,000. However, he also warned of currently overbought conditions, suggesting that a brief shakeout to $118,000–$120,000 remains possible.
“From here, watch for volatility spikes and any shift in put volume as a red flag for near-term corrections,” Péquignot said. “Bulls have their eyes on $130K+, and bears might find opportunities in overbought squeezes.”