Bitcoin prices rise above $28,000 as Q1 2023 comes to a close

Yahoo Finance crypto reporter David Hollerith discusses Bitcoin's timeline and its steady rise in value over the past year, despite bank failures.

Video transcript

Let's talk about another big winner in the first quarter, and that of course is Bitcoin. It has certainly been on a massive run to the upside, climbing more than 70% since January 1st. And Ethereum not too far behind, up just about 50%. We want to bring in our Crypto Reporter David Hollerith.

And David, when you take a look at these massive gains, lots of questions just about the biggest driver here and whether or not that's going to continue?

DAVID HOLLERITH: Shawna, that's always the question. The crypto market-- I think the story here is that it's had no real issue shaking off the value destruction that we saw last year. But you know, that being said in the US, the asset class isn't exactly away from facing challenges.

Bitcoin stole the show, and it closed out the quarter above 70%. It's leading other major cryptocurrencies by about 10%. It's also sort of broken away from its correlation with the NASDAQ, which it typically is pretty high in correlation with, though it's still moving in sync. They're both up, obviously. And just for the wild rise, it sort of started in January for Bitcoin. It rose about 40% above $20,000 and then it kind of fluctuated between 20 and 25.

And we saw the voluntary liquidation and involuntary liquidation of Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank, and then also Signature Bank happened in March. During that period, Bitcoin slipped below $20,000, sort of in between Silvergate's message of winding down, and Silicon Valley Banks news of seizure.

So that was sort of the moment of panic. And after that, the major cryptocurrency has-- it's just been flying. It's up another 20% from that time-- or excuse me, it's up another 30% since that time. And while the bank failures have definitely shown that bank stocks are kind of the area that's hurt right now, the two major banks that did fail, Silvergate and Signature, or that wound down, that is reduced liquidity for major cryptocurrencies in trading.

And what that basically means is that the price is a little bit more easily influenced by buy and sell orders. And that's especially true over the weekends. That's what we've seen. Other cryptocurrencies I'll point out, XRP, which is currently sort of on the home-end stretch of being ruled as either a security, or something else in its court case-- related court case between Ripple Labs and the SCC.

It rose about 57% through the quarter. And then the second largest cryptocurrency, Ether, rose a little more than 50%. And that one's a good one to keep an eye on, as it has a new upgrade coming in the coming weeks in April. That's the Shanghai upgrade. Shares of Coinbase have also moved fairly similar to the cryptocurrency asset class.

Moving along with Bitcoin, Coinbase is up. You know, it fluctuates even more than Bitcoin, at least today. But it's up more than 70% from the last I saw it. On all of those notes, I think I'll also point out just in general, in the US there's still been no shortage this quarter of regulatory tightening going on.

So it's interesting to sort of see this split continue between sort of what's happening with regulation, which is uncertain, and then the asset class, which is obviously moving pretty well right now.

- And very, very well to the upside. All right, David Hollerith, thanks so much.