Bitcoin came within touching distance of $70,000 on Wednesday before pulling back to around $68,300 in Thursday morning trading, a swing of nearly 5% from the session high to the overnight low of $67,700.
The move marks the strongest attempt to retake the $70,000 level since the February 5 crash, but stalled shortly after a clean breakout.
The more interesting story was below. Altcoins fared better across the board, with ether up 8.5%, solana up 6.9%, cardano up 10.8%, and dogecoin up 8.3%. Bitcoin’s gain of 4.3% was among the smallest in the top 10.
That kind of divergence typically signals that risk appetite is returning to the edges of the market, with traders chasing higher beta moves when they think the worst of the selling is done.
“The wave of foreclosures is starting to clear,” Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, said in an email. “Altcoins are doing well again, and more of them are ahead of bitcoin. That tells me we’re seeing a rotation.”
The rejection came along with a subdued reaction to Nvidia’s quarterly earnings, which beat estimates but failed to sustain a rally. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.3% after the report, and Nvidia shares erased most of their gains after earnings, rising just 0.2% in extended trading.
The world’s most valuable company signaled concerns about an overheated AI economy that dampened what had been a multi-day rally in tech stocks.
Meanwhile, the macro backdrop remains fragile for a continued move in the crypto markets. Market maker Wintermute noted that cryptocurrencies have lost ground along with tech stocks as capital rotates into defensive and tangible assets.
Crypto-funding platform Matrixport marks stagnation in stablecoin supply as a “significant obstacle” for bitcoin, and onchain data firm Glassnode expects broader liquidity to recover in six months at the earliest.
The risk in the short term is straightforward. Cryptoquant data shows selling has slowed on Binance, supporting the case for a near-term bounce. Elsewhere, crypto exchange Bitrue warned that a break below $60,000 could open up a move towards $50,000-$55,000 or even $47,000 if cascading liquidations accelerate.
The gap between the short-term bounce and the medium-term trend remains wide — and Wednesday’s rejection at $70,000 did nothing to close it.
