As the fourth Bitcoin halving approaches and is about a month away, the primary cryptocurrency’s price experienced something it hadn’t done before – to chart a new all-time high before that significant event.

In fact, that happened last week but only intensified during the past several days. The weekend went as it typically does, in a quiet manner, as the asset had calmed at around $69,000.

This Monday, though, mimicked the previous one in terms of daily gains, and BTC skyrocketed to nearly $73,000 to chart yet another all-time high. The bears were quick to intervene and pushed the cryptocurrency south almost immediately, and it slipped to under $69,000.

However, the bulls returned quickly to the scene and propelled another leg up, which resulted in a fresh all-time high of almost $74,000. This meant that BTC’s year-to-date gains had soared to over 60%.

However, this is where another retracement arrived, perhaps propelled by investors cashing out some profits. In just a matter of hours, Bitcoin slumped by roughly eight grand and fell to a weekly low of under $66,000.

Despite recovering some ground now, its dominance over the alts has suffered and is under 49.5% now. Its market cap, which had surpassed that of silver earlier this week, has also declined to $1.344 trillion on CG.

At the same time, several altcoins went up and down following BTC’s price movements, but some – such as SOL, BNB, AVAX, and TON, have produced double-digit weekly surges that took them to multi-year peaks.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.72T | 24H Vol: $258B | BTC Dominance: 49.3%

BTC: $68,632 (+0.5%) | ETH: $3,673 (-6.9%) | BNB: $570 (+20.9%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade Goes Live on Mainnet: Promises Lower Fees and Enhanced Scalability. Perhaps the most important news not related to Bitcoin from this week came from Ethereum, as the second-largest blockchain finally launched its biggest update since the Merge on Wednesday. Dubbed Dencun, it aims to reduce the fees while also enhancing scalability.

Craig Wright Is Not Satoshi Nakamoto, Rules UK Judge (Report). After about a decade of claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto – the anonymous creator of the Bitcoin network – Craig Wright received a massive blow from a UK Judge who reportedly ruled that he is not.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs Experience Record $1.05 Billion Daily Inflow as BTC Soared Past $73K. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have attracted billions of dollars in their two months of existence, and this week, they saw an ATH in terms of daily inflows as well. On Tuesday alone, over $1 billion went into such financial products in the US, with BlackRock’s IBIT taking the lion’s share.

How Is This Bitcoin (BTC) Bull Run Different Than All Previous Ones? (Pre-Halving Analysis). As mentioned above, BTC’s current bull run is quite different than the previous ones because its price charted a new ATH before the halving. You can find out more about how this could benefit or harm the asset in the following months here.

Why Did ARK Invest Sell $150M Coinbase (COIN) Shares in a Week? In a move to rebalance its portfolios for some of its ETFs, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest sold more than $150 million worth of Coinbase (COIN) shares in the span of a week or so. The firm had accumulated substantial portions of the exchange’s stock in the past several months.

MicroStrategy Buys Another 12,000 BTC After Raising Over $800M From Convertible Notes. MicroStrategy is at it again with another massive Bitcoin purchase worth just over $800 million. The largest corporate holder of the primary cryptocurrency raised funds through the sale of convertible notes for its latest BTC accumulation spree.

Charts

This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Solana, and Binance Coin – click here for the complete price analysis.