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Bitcoin Rallies to $29K; Cardano Leads Gains Among Crypto Majors
Total market capitalization has risen 4.9% in the past 24 hours on expectations of Fed easing, some investors said.
Updated Apr 26, 2023, 2:41 p.m. Published Apr 26, 2023, 10:41 a.m.
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Bitcoin rose to $29,000 in European morning hours on Wednesday, with some investors pointing to expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will inject money into the economy in the coming weeks after signs of yet another U.S. bank collapse. Bitcoin was last at that level April 20, TradingView data show.
Shares of First Republic Bank (FRC) tumbled 50% on Tuesday after the San Francisco-based lender revealed a dramatic slump in deposits. Investors withdrew over $100 billion from the bank this quarter, prompting concerns it will become the third bank to fail, joining Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
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The slide stressed U.S. markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 1% and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropping almost 2%. In contrast, bitcoin's price has added 6.4% in the past 24 hours, following safe-haven assets such as gold, to reverse nearly all losses from last week's sell-off.
Overall crypto market capitalization grew by 4.9%, with the likes of Cardano's ADA and Solana's SOL tokens jumping more than 7% to lead gains among major tokens.
Some observers reasoned the rally came from expectations of a liquidity injection by the Fed in a bid to protect its capital markets.
"With First Republic Bank looking like it could go under, I suspect the market is anticipating yet more liquidity injections to prop up what certainly seems to be an American banking sector that is still very much in the throes of crisis," Jake Boyle, a director of retail crypto brokerage Caleb & Brown, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.
"Bitcoin, as a result, is front-running these expectations. Cracks in the financial system are growing, even if relatively subtly at the moment, and it’s going to be incredibly difficult for the Fed to adhere to its tightening regime going forward,” he said. "Bitcoin’s rally of late has more to do with liquidity injections and rising expectations that the Fed’s tightening will probably have to end fairly soon, or else even greater turbulence in the banking sector could ensue.”
UPDATE (April 26, 11:00 UTC): Rewrites headline, first paragraph for bitcoin hitting $29,000; updates crypto prices throughout.
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Here's what bitcoin bulls are saying as price remains stuck during global rally
It's about a lot more than "zooming out." Supply overhangs and investor "muscle memory" regarding gold help explain bitcoin's poor absolute and relative performance.
What to know:
- Bitcoin has failed so far to act as an inflation hedge or safe-haven asset, lagging badly behind gold, which has surged amid high inflation, wars, and interest rate uncertainty.
- Crypto advocates argue that bitcoin’s weakness reflects a temporary supply overhang, investor “muscle memory” favoring familiar precious metals and its correlation with risk assets, rather than a collapse in long-term demand.
- Many bitcoin proponents still see BTC as a superior long-term store of value and “digital gold,” predicting that, once traditional hard assets are overbought, capital will rotate into bitcoin, allowing it to “catch up” to gold.
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