Coin Prices Today January 2: Bitcoin hits $45,000, altcoins rebound sharply, Wall Street trades almost sideways on first day of 2024

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Bitcoin topped $45,000 for the first time in nearly two years as the market braced for the approval of the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF.

BTC Price Chart – 1 Day | Source: TradingView

US stocks

Stock futures were flat in overnight trading Monday as the new year started with a strong start to 2023, with the S&P 500 up 24%.

Dow Jones futures contracts were up just 18 points, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were almost flat. The market is closed on New Year’s Day on Monday.

Stock markets ended 2023 on a high note, with the S&P 500 ending the year with nine straight weeks of gains, its longest winning streak since 2004. Risk assets have recovered strongly as the economy remains resilient, inflation cools, and the Federal Reserve signals an end to interest rate hikes. Markets will also have to weather a regional banking crisis in 2023, as well as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Technology stocks, especially large-cap stocks, led the gains in 2023, with Apple soaring 48%, Microsoft soaring nearly 57%, and Nvidia soaring 239%.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 43.4% for the year, its best annual performance since 2020. The blue-chip Dow Jones rose 13.7%, setting a new record for 2023.

After a stellar 2023, Wall Street strategists expect stock returns to fall sharply in the new year, according to CNBC PRO’s exclusive Market Strategist Survey. Fourteen top strategists from major firms expect the S&P 500 to end 2024 at 4,881, just about 2.3% above Friday’s closing price of 4,769.83.

Some have warned that a weak economy and weak consumer spending could slow earnings growth at U.S. companies.

“Indeed, the biggest risk to stocks is not that the Fed or ECB won’t cut interest rates as expected, but that earnings per share will fall more than expected. The power of growth and recession,” Vital Knowledge founder Adam Crisafulli said in a report said.

Bitcoin and altcoins

Bitcoin (BTC) prices have topped $45,000 for the first time in nearly two years as the market prepares to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF in the coming days.

Bitcoin has rebounded rapidly from $42,000 on January 1, hitting a local peak of $45,372, rising more than 6% in the past 24 hours and rising 170% in 2023 to hit a new yearly high.

Bitcoin up 6% in past 24 hours | Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin’s price performance comes as the market prepares for the SEC to approve one or more of 14 important Bitcoin spot ETF product applications.

Bitcoin last traded above $45,000 nearly 20 months ago, on April 5, 2022, before falling into a prolonged bear market that saw the price bottom out at $15,600.

Market commentators remain divided over the potential impact of ETF approval on Bitcoin prices in the short term.

Analysts at crypto options trading platform Greeks.live said that Bitcoin will not see a significant rise on the day of approval as the volatility of Bitcoin options gradually decreases.

Traders on X have different ideas.Scott Mirko say Bitcoin has 925,000 followers and is currently building “strong upward momentum” after a month of accumulation above the $40,000 area.

Melkor predicted that Bitcoin could rise to $54,000 once it receives SEC approval.

Meanwhile, VanEck advisor Gabor Gurbacs predicts that the early development of spot Bitcoin ETFs will be “pretty disappointing,” but ultimately he believes that over time, these products will attract trillions of dollars’ worth of investment in the coming years. capital inflow.

On the altcoin front, the market also surged as Bitcoin touched the $45,000 mark.

Sei (SEI) is the best performing project today. The Layer 1 blockchain’s native utility token optimized for digital asset trading has rebounded more than 28% in the past 24 hours and is up 74% on the seven-day time frame.

Other projects in the top 100 such as WEMIX (WEMIX), The Graph (GRT), Mina (MINA), Celestia (TIA), Bonk (BONK), Filecoin (FIL), WOO Network (WOO) gained more than 10%.

Arbitrum (ARB), Stacks (STX), Lido DAO (LDO), Injective (INJ), Pepe (PEPE), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Avalanche (AVAX), Aave (AAVE), Immutable (IMX), Sui (SUI )), THORChain (RUNE), Tezos (XTZ), Solana (SOL), Theta Network (THETA), Algorand (ALGO), Aptos (APT)… increased by 6-9%.

Source: Coinmarketcap

Ethereum (ETH) also rebounded, approaching the $2,400 area. The second-largest asset by market capitalization is up 3.5% from the previous 24 hours and is currently trading around $2,380.