Bitcoin Surges As Investors Shrug Off Interest Rate Spike And Banking Concerns

The price of Bitcoin (BTC), the world's first-ever and largest crypto asset by market capitalization, surged Thursday after market nerves over U.S. financial stability, the banking crisis and the recent interest rate hike announced by the Federal Reserve eased up.

Bitcoin snapped back to almost $29,000 Thursday as investors got bullish and shrugged off the news of a new regulatory crackdown launched by U.S. financial regulators.

Investors were bullish despite several reports that the SEC started targeting cryptocurrency firms. Among them is the American publicly traded company Coinbase, which recently received a Wells notice from the regulator.

Bitcoin was hovering above $28,800 Thursday morning and retreated to $28,200 in the afternoon, still showing a 4% gain over the past 24 hours. The maiden crypto tried to maintain its price even after the news broke that TFL co-founder Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro – which many expected to dampen the crypto asset's performance.

Aside from investors' optimistic view about Bitcoin, popular crypto analyst and trader who uses the Twitter handle @CryptoKaleo also expressed their bullish sentiment toward the maiden crypto. The crypto analyst informed their more than half a million followers on Twitter that Bitcoin's rally to the key psychological level of $40,000 will be a lot quicker.

"The move from $30,000 to $40,000 BTC is going to happen a lot quicker than most people think," the analyst's tweet read, adding that "plenty of people who *want* to be bulls, but are waiting for a dip will be left watching from the sidelines."

Kaleo previously mentioned the $40,000 target for Bitcoin and noted that this particular psychological level is a "magnet."

"This is your daily reminder that $40K is a magnet. Do you believe me yet," the crypto analyst said in a previous tweet.

Kaleo also mentioned altcoins and noted that the tokens' rally could happen when Bitcoin dominance retraces on its way to soaring over 52%.

"BTC dominance is testing the upper resistance of the channel it's been chopping in the past two years," the crypto analyst said, adding that "a slight pullback here – resulting in a little alt rally across the board makes sense."

Meanwhile, Eric Chen, the CEO and co-founder of Injective Labs, the firm behind the decentralized Finance (DeFi) Injective, explained the market rally on Thursday. "Thursday's market rally came after investors had already 'priced in' in the possibility that the Fed will not raise the interest rate again this year," he said.

As of 3:06 a.m. ET on Friday, Bitcoin saw a 2.17% gain over the past 24 hours and was trading up above the $28,000 price level with a 24-hour volume of $22,918,255,463, according to the latest data from CoinMarketCap.