Bitcoin Surges Above $38,000 as BTC and Ethereum Hit 18-Month Highs

The crypto markets may have sat still on Thanksgiving, but early price action on Friday is driving some of the top coins to levels unseen in a year and a half.

Bitcoin on Friday rocketed above the $38,000 mark, according to CoinGecko, rising to $38,390 at present. The last time BTC hit that level was back in May 2022. Over the past week, the asset has risen by nearly 7%, pushing its 30-day gains above 10%.

Cash has flooded back into the crypto markets, with big digital asset funds receiving most of the money as investors feel confident that a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) will finally approved by U.S. regulators after 10 years.

Such a product would give traditional investors exposure to the crypto world in a safe and regulated way. In a Monday report, digital asset fund manager CoinShares said that crypto products received inflows of $176 million last week—the eighth consecutive week of inflows.

Meanwhile, Ethereum also spiked to an 18-month high, per data from CoinGecko, reaching a peak of nearly $2,131 early Friday. It’s currently trading at $2,121, and is up about 4% on the day.

The asset is up 17% over the past 30 days, and continues trending upward. Ethereum had been trading above $2,500 some 18 months ago in May 2022, before the markets got hit hard by the collapse of crypto mega project Terra.

Elsewhere, meme coin king Dogecoin is up over 3% in the past day, trading for $0.078. Its rival, Shiba Inu, put up a nearly 3% gain as well at a current price of $0.00000828.

Solana, which experienced a lot of price action this month, was one of the sleepiest of the major coins and tokens, having only jumped by 2% over the past day to a current price above $58. Over the past week, Solana has risen by 3%.

Edited by Andrew Hayward