Monday started on a positive note for bitcoin as it jumped to a new multi-month peak of $69,500 but failed to continue upward toward the coveted $70,000 level.

Some altcoins have charted gains over the past day, which has helped the total crypto market cap near $2.5 trillion for the first time since July.

BTC Still Can’t Touch $70K

The past week or so went quite positively for the primary cryptocurrency. It began with a price surge from $62,400 to $66,400 last Monday before the bulls and the bears collided on Tuesday in a move that resulted in massive $3,000 fluctuations.

However, the bulls turned out to be the winners of this battle and continued to push the asset north. The weekly culmination came on Friday when BTC touched $69,000 for the first time since late July.

The weekend was expectedly calmer, with bitcoin trading sideways around $68,500. However, it went on the offensive during the early Asian trading hours on Monday when it pumped to $69,500 to chart a new three-month peak.

Still, it failed to overcome that level and continue toward $70,000 and the subsequent rejection pushed it south by around a grand. Nevertheless, its market cap remains above $1.350 trillion, while its dominance over the alts has taken a major hit and is down to 54.5% from 55.1%.

SOL Up 5.5%

The biggest gainer yesterday in the crypto industry was ApeCoin’s APE. The asset exploded by triple digits daily and soared to a six-month high of $1.7 before retracing to its current level of around $1.5. This came after a major development announced by the team.

Most alts are with minor gains today, with ETH soaring past $2,700 after a 3% increase. BCH, LINK, UNI, and ADA have marked similar price jumps, while SOL has emerged as today’s top performer from the larger-cap alts.

These gains have helped the total crypto market cap add around $35 billion overnight. The metric is now close to $2.5 trillion for the first time in about three months.