Bitcoin Bounces 6%, Threatens $38K; 'Good Times Are Here,' Analyst Says

Cryptocurrencies Wednesday roared back from yesterday's drubbing, with bitcoin (BTC) nearing a new 18-month high just shy of $38,000 after tumbling below $35,000 at one point on Tuesday.

Ether (ETH) advanced more than 3% to near $2,060, retaking the $2,000 level after yesterday's fall to nearly $1,900.

Native tokens of layer 1 blockchains Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX) led gains among altcoins, with 18% and 23% jumps during the day, respectively.

SOL has been a leader of altcoins for weeks now, nearly tripling in price over the past month, as concerns about FTX dumping its tokens subsided and demand among institutional investors increased. AVAX perhaps benefitted from a recent announcement that traditional-finance giants JPMorgan and Apollo used the network to demonstrate a "proof of concept" for how asset managers could tokenize funds, a red-hot trend in crypto.

The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI), a market-cap weighted basket of almost 200 cryptos, was up 5%, underscoring the market-wide positive day for digital assets.

"Bitcoin is going mainstream, and the bear is behind us," Charlie Morris, founder of investment advisory firm ByteTree, said in a Wednesday market report. "The good times are here."

ByteTree highlighted BTC's strong showing compared to traditional assets such as U.S. equity indexes and gold, which have also been advancing.

"Bitcoin’s trend is not only strong in dollars, but strong against other key assets," Morris noted. "This is important for institutional adoption because they don’t buy alternative assets unless there’s a little extra return."

Morris also noted the strengthening trend of altcoins as the market breadth improved after a grueling two years of crypto winter.

The ByteTree Crypto Average (BCA) trend breadth indicator, which measures the equal-weight daily average price changes for the top 100 tokens, flashed a four-star rating out of five for the first time since April.

"When the trend is positive, it is better to have higher exposure to crypto," Morris said.