Crypto suddenly surges

Crypto is stepping lively into the latter half of February. Total market capitalization increased 7% to $1.16 trillion over the past 24 hours. When we checked Bitcoin today at 8 a.m. (EST), the largest crypto had reached $24,575 on an 8% gain since this time yesterday. Ethereum also was rallying. ETH rose 4% as it moved closer toward $1,700. A slew of layer-1 altcoins also hit their stride. Polygon's MATIC, for example, shot up 10%.

This mid-winter hot streak is happening despite rumblings about the Federal Reserve’s reluctance to unravel the tourniquet it has affixed to money supply; and warmth has descended despite ongoing regulatory crackdowns.

Bad news is being shrugged off. Short sellers are getting the snot squeezed out of them. And momentum continues to build.

"There are signs that the crypto market bottomed last November," Luno's Vijay Ayyar told CNBC. "Things have turned bullish.”

Late Tuesday, NFT platform Blur air-dropped some 128,000 tokens to users, setting off a whirlwind of hype, wallet maneuvers, swapping, selling and intense volatility. The newly gifted tokens spent part of their Valentine's Day debut lustily soaring to $5. BLUR would saunter into the world of Coinbase traders at $1 but at one point yesterday fell to as low as 48 cents before rebounding.

As of Thursday at 8:40 a.m. (EST), BLUR had a market capitalization of about $400 million, according to CoinGecko. That’s enough for BLUR to rank as CoinGecko's 122nd-largest digital asset.

Over 24 hours, BLUR gained 44% to $1.10. Relative to its all-time high of $5.02, reached some 48 hours ago, BLUR is down 78%.

At just shy of $25,000, Bitcoin is experiencing the kind of high that has eluded it since the dog days of summer. It was only a few days ago that BTC dipped below $22,000, weighed down by worrisome signs of unrelenting inflation, while freighted with the uncertainty surrounding the situation with industry titan Binance, which continues to wrestle with U.S. regulators over myriad allegations.

So far, the first month-and-a-half of 2023 has been a humdinger for BTC, rallying 50%. Could it get any better?

CoinDesk today cited one technical analyst who expects a continued move higher. The analyst claims to see, in the chart patterns, BTC as having been flung free from "a long-basing formation."

And there's a saying among technician types, explained William Noble, director of research at Emerging Assets Group: "The bigger the base, the higher into space."

Within the year, Noble envisions BTC more than doubling to $56,000.