Bitcoin rallies, tops $70,000 as risk assets stabilize

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Amanda Cooper NEW YORK/LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Bitcoin climbed back above $70,000 on Friday, after sinking to a 16‑month low earlier, lifted by a sharp rebound in technology shares and precious metals following a global rout that had hammered a broad swathe of risk assets. The world's largest cryptocurrency was last up more than 11% at $70,231, rising as high as $71,464.96 and recouping losses that pushed it to  $60,017.60, the lowest level since October 24, earlier on. Bitcoin posted its largest one-day gain since March 2023, but was down roughly 8% this week. "It feels like a day of consolidation for risk assets that have been under pressure this week," said Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at Scotiabank in Toronto. The digital currency market has struggled for months since a record crash last October sent bitcoin tumbling from an all-time peak and investor sentiment toward these assets has cooled. Friday's low was its weakest level since early October 2024. That was just before bitcoin's rally accelerated as Donald Trump closed in on winning the U.S. presidential election, having signalled his intention to support crypto on the campaign trail. Market participants, however, were leery about Friday's recovery. The options market showed that investors are anticipating further losses on bitcoin, as demand for downside protection increased. Data from Derive.xyz, a decentralized options platform, showed a significant build-up of put open interest in bitcoin, or expectations that the price will fall further. Traders focused on the $60,000 to $50,000 strikes for the February 27 expiry. Those bets suggested that investors are wagering that bitcoin will end up near or at those levels by that date. "It's a one-way market. Demand for downside protection is extreme," said Sean Dawson, head of research at Derive.xyz. "While longer-term fundamentals for bitcoin remain intact, the options market is clearly signalling that this aggressive grind lower may persist in the near-term." Ether was last up 12% at $2,068, having similarly slid close to a 10-month low of $1,753.98 earlier in the session. The second-largest cryptocurrency was on pace for its largest daily gain since August last year. On the week, however, it was still down more than 9%. STILL $2 TRILLION LOST SINCE OCTOBER Still, the global crypto market had lost some $2 trillion in value since hitting a peak of $4.379 trillion in early October even with Friday's bounce-back, CoinGecko data showed, with more than $1 trillion wiped out over the past month alone. "Bitcoin drifting back toward $60,000 is not crypto dying, it is the bill coming due for Treasuries and funds that treated bitcoin as a one-way asset without real risk controls, just as we have seen sharp corrections in self-proclaimed safe-haven assets like gold and silver when leverage and narrative ran ahead of reality," said Joshua Chu, co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association. "Those who bet too big, borrowed too much or assumed prices only go up are now finding out the hard way what real market volatility and risk management look like." Sentiment toward crypto had been affected by the latest selloff in precious metals and stocks. Gold and silver, for instance, have caught the market's attention due to their extreme volatility as a result of leveraged buying and speculative flows.  On Friday, both metals regained their footing, with silver up 8.8%, while gold rose about 4%. Bitcoin's fortunes have also been tied to the broader tech sector for some time. The price tended to rise, particularly on the back of investor enthusiasm over artificial intelligence. The Dow Jones Industrial Average blew past the historic 50,000 mark on Friday and the S&P 500 ended sharply higher, as Nvidia and other chipmakers soared. Anthony Pompliano, a major crypto investor and founder and chief executive officer at Professional Capital Management, said the "recent selloff is not nearly as bad as past bear markets." "Bitcoiners were built for this type of chaos in markets. They have held the asset through many 50%-plus drawdowns." He noted that bitcoin has experienced a 50% drawdown approximately every 18 months for the last decade. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Amanda Cooper in London; Additional reporting by Rae Wee and Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Editing by Diane Craft and Matthew Lewis)

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