Bitcoin Hits Highest Level Since January as Oil Prices Drop

The Defiant reported that the digital asset reached $86,355 on the Coinbase exchange on Monday, its peak since January 29. It subsequently closed at $86,194, up 6.8% in 24 hours and 9.8% over the prior week. In contrast, front-month West Texas Intermediate crude dropped from its Friday settlement of $100.30 to $92.17 on Monday, an 8.1% fall.

U.S. stocks rose with the crypto sector. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.6% to 26,947, and the S&P 500 gained 1.0% to 7,726. The total crypto market value hit $2.92 trillion on $139 billion in trading volume, with bitcoin holding a 58.9% share.

Nicolai Søndergaard, a senior research analyst at Nansen, cited multiple drivers rather than a single macro factor. "Bitcoin's move above $84,000 looks less like a clean macro-driven accumulation event and more like a combination of renewed ETF demand and a large short squeeze," Søndergaard said. He observed that major industry players had not yet joined the surge.

"Hyperliquid's largest BTC traders were still net short, while onchain exchange flows showed more BTC moving into exchanges than out of them over the past two days," he said. "That tells us large crypto-native holders have not yet fully embraced the rally."

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw $433.0 million in net inflows on Friday. Fidelity's FBTC attracted $310.7 million, and BlackRock's IBIT took in $108.4 million. Perpetual funding rates on OKX stood at 0.0034%, suggesting the perpetual swap traded below the index price.