XRP, SUI Lead Crypto Rebound as Bitcoin Tops $89K; Relief Rally Faces $100K Wall, Trader Says
Traders now see a December rate cut increasingly likely, following fresh comments from San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly.
What to know:
Bitcoin extended its weekend gains topping $89,000, rising over 10% from Friday’s lows.
Altcoins led gains, with ETH, XRP, SUI outperforming BTC. Crypto equities also surged across the board.
After weeks of macro-driven pressure, conditions for crypto consolidation are finally in place, a Wintermute trader said.
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Bitcoin BTC $91,593.53 and the broader crypto market extended their weekend rebound on Monday, with altcoins taking the lead as traders recalibrated expectations around interest rates and macro pressures faded.
BTC briefly topped $89,000 during U.S. hours, gaining more than 10% from Friday’s trough just above $80,000. It was recently changing hands at $88,800, up 1.4% over the past 24 hours. Ethereum’s ether ETH $3,040.37 rose 4.4% to just shy of $3,000, in line with gains of the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index.
XRP $2.2037 and SUI $1.5515 were among the strongest performers over the past 24 hours, rallying 8% and 11.5%, respectively, as altcoins led the move higher.
Crypto stocks surge as rate cut odds rise
Crypto-related equities followed suit, with the strongest advance seen among mining firms tied to artificial intelligence (AI) and data center infrastructure, driven by Amazon's fresh plan to invest $50 billion in AI and supercomputing infrastructure in the U.S. CleanSpark (CLSK), Cipher Mining (CIFR) led the pack with an 18% rally, while Hut 8 (HUT), Bitfarms (BITF), IREN, Hut 8 (HUT), HIVE $0.1109 and TeraWulf (WULF) booked double-digit gains.
Even beaten-down digital asset treasuries (DAT) rose: Ethereum-centric BitMine (BMNR) surged almost 20%, while Solana-focused Solana Company (HSDT) jumped over 16% and Avalanche treasury AVAX One (AVX) closed 10.4% higher. Bitcoin treasuries Strive (ASST) and MetaPlanet (MTPLF) gained 10.7% and 8.7%, respectively, with the largest corporate bitcoin holder Strategy (MSTR) bouncing 5%.
The move came amid a broader equity market rebound following last week’s sell-off. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes rose 2.6% and 1.5%, respectively.
Improving sentiment was bolstered by a December Fed interest rate cut looking increasingly likely. According to a Monday Wall Street Journal report, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said she supports a December rate cut, citing concerns about a vulnerable labor market. Daly’s alignment with Chair Jerome Powell’s views makes her comments especially notable, the report pointed out.
Traders now price in an 85% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut for the December 10 meeting, up from 42% just a week ago, CME FedWatch Tool data shows.
Relief rally face $100K wall
“While digital assets have been caught squarely in the macro unwind, the market now sits at a point where consolidation finally looks plausible,” Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at Wintermute, said in a Monday note.
He pointed out that crypto positioning has reset with neutral-to-negative funding rates, reduced leverage and healthier spot volumes. Given the spot-driven activity and washed-out leverage, he expects a more gradual, orderly recovery instead of a rapid squeeze higher.
Still, BTC's bounce could be capped below $100,000 as year-end dynamics weigh on prices, said Paul Howard, senior director at trading firm Wincent.
"We saw whales selling and tightening liquidity, leading to the institutional basis trade unwind and wave of ETF selling," he said. "Dovetail this with the year-end where we typically see books selling crypto for reporting purposes sentiment remains muted."
"I do not expect we bounce back to $100,000 levels anytime before Q1," Howard added, but said that the foundations are in place for significant value growth across the digital asset class in the next 12 months.