Bitcoin tastes $23,000

Bitcoin spent the better part of Saturday getting reacquainted with $23,000 before sheepishly pulling away – but that mark came right back into view. As of Monday, at 8:12 a.m. (EST), BTC was about $22,920 as it edged up 0.4% in 24 hours

Sixth-largest coin XRP jumps out among Big Ten digital assets, leaping 5% over the past one day to $0.42. Momentum was slightly waning, though, when we took a gander later in the morning.

Looking at the Top 100, per CoinGecko, it's a sea of green, underscoring a sky-of-blue crypto rebound that on the one hand is kind of stunning and, on the other, a not entirely unexpected reversion to the mean after an overshoot to the downside. The total global crypto market capitalization is closing in on $1.1 trillion, per CoinGecko.

Today's biggest gainer is Axie Infinity. At one point earlier today, the pioneering play-to-earn platform's native AXS had spiked 40% to reach just under $14, a four-month high. The rally accompanies news of an impending token unlock event, usually a bearish catalyst. But in this case, analysts surmise, the release of some 4.8 million AXS (equal to 1.8% of total supply) smacks of some kind of bigger, bullish announcement safely coming soon and to some counter effect now that crypto winter has bent its knee to a warm spell (CoinDesk).

A stalwart of the GameFi sub-sector with a foothold in the metaverse, AXS is the 41st-largest digital asset in terms of market cap, according to CoinGecko. Back at the height of the crypto market in November of 2021, AXS hit an all-time high of about $165.

Searching for news items about AXS, we encountered the story of Aptos' APT which for a few hours early Monday had its sights set on being up 100% in one week.

What in the world? Crypto twitter is spinning a narrative, partly laced with suspicion, around newfound non-fungible token glory experienced on the speedy network dubbed the "Solana killer."

Apparently, among avatar aficionados, there is a surge of interest in NFT collections, such as AptosMonkeys (not to be confused with Sheffield rock band The Arctic Monkeys).

Flouting industry turmoil and negative perceptions about its tokenomics, APT has rocketed more than 200% in two weeks. Yesterday, APT hit an ATH of $14.47, according to CoinGecko. Since then, the token's price has fallen by 10% to below $13. APT began the year at about $3.

Bitcoin is nearing a five-month high, but is it already overbought?

On Saturday, the largest crypto, which only weeks ago was completely written off by many market pundits, hit $23,400 but then buckled. Sunday brought a swift retreat to a level closer to $22,400. Looking toward the week ahead, Bitcoin.com scribes are watching the 14-day relative strength index (RSI); suffice to say, without getting too technical, the fortnightly RSI metric has some room to move higher if the current rally is to be sustained.

BTC’s total market capitalization broke through the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA), a bullish signal and no small feat, Cointelegraph noted, highlighting murky macro conditions and on-chain research suggesting that large holders, or whales, might be “moving prices artificially with huge amounts of liquidity."

Despite opposition, the largest crypto continues to surprise market participants battered by the events of the past few months and now keenly attune to moving average markers.