Bitcoin Is Rising Above a Key Level Even as Crypto Fights Off Attacks | #government | #hacking | #cyberattack

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Bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies were rising on Wednesday, largely shaking off weakness from a spate of hacks in the digital asset space and getting back in the groove of a recent rally that had lost steam.

The price of Bitcoin gained 2% over the past 24 hours to $23,400, reversing three straight days of declines that had marked a slip back from a month long rally that had brought the largest digital asset from $19,000 to more than $24,000 last week. Bitcoin continues to trade at around one-third its all-time high near $69,000, reached in November 2021.

“Bitcoin has reclaimed $23,000 this morning, which is a positive sign for bulls, as it means that price is above the highly watched 200 weekly moving average (which sits at around $22,900),” Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in a note. 

“Bitcoin’s ability to hold above the 200 weekly moving average coincided with the S&P 500 falling 0.67% yesterday, which could be a sign of renewed interest in the crypto market relative to equities,” Sotiriou added.

Bitcoin and its peers should, in theory, trade independently of mainstream finance, but they have proved to be largely correlated to other risk-sensitive assets like stocks, and have followed the

S&P 500
and

Nasdaq
lower in a sharp selloff this year.

Beyond Bitcoin,

Ether
—the second-largest crypto—advanced 5% to nearly $1,700. Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, were higher, with

Cardano
and

Avalanche
up 3% and 5%, respectively. Memecoins—initially intended as internet jokes—also gained, with both

Dogecoin
and

Shiba Inu
climbed 2%.

Strength in Bitcoin and other tokens came despite a number of hacks across the digital asset space, including an apparent attack on one of the largest blockchain networks,

Solana,
on Tuesday. 

While Bitcoin’s correlation to stocks has proved key in dictating price movements, crypto-native weaknesses—like the meltdown of stablecoin Terra or collapse of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital—have also tended to weigh on token prices.

Solana was a rare faller in the crypto space Wednesday as the token underpinning that blockchain network dropped 2% following a multimillion-dollar hack that appeared focused on the Phantom and Slop digital wallets, according to Sotiriou.

And it’s not even the first one this week. Cryptocurrency bridge Nomad—which connects two blockchain networks—was hit Monday in a $200 million attack.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com