Bitcoin inches higher after outperforming stocks this year 

Bitcoin gained 1% Friday morning, paring losses from earlier in the week that saw the crypto lose as much as 4%

article-image

Emre Kahraman/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The crypto markets rebounded Friday and equities traded sideways as traders made their final moves of 2023.

Bitcoin gained 1% Friday morning, paring losses from earlier in the week that saw the crypto lose as much as 4% between Monday and Tuesday. Bitcoin (BTC) remains up 14% over the month and 159% year-to-date.

Ether (ETH) moved 1.3% higher, extending gains from earlier in the week. Ether is up 17% over the month and 98% year-to-date. 

Solana (SOL) was back in the green after losing as much as 9% Thursday. Analysts say the move was an expected pullback as traders lock in 2023 profits. 

Read more: Meme coins unwind, SOL loses 9% in 24 hours 

“Overall, the bullish trend is completely intact,” Roshun Patel, partner at Hack VC, said. 

Buyers will keep coming even in the event of a 30%-40% decline for SOL, Patel added. 

Equities were trading flat for a second day Friday, with the S&P 500 moving up 0.02% and the Nasdaq Composite losing 0.05%. Analysts were not surprised to see minimal moves this week, given the narratives investors still have to parse through in the new year. 

“Looking forward, we can expect markets to get back to ‘normal’ next week as we start a new year and answer some pretty important (and still undecided) questions about economic growth, actual vs. expected Fed policy, and earnings,” Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, said. 

Bitcoin outperformed equities in 2023, with the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes clocking around 56% and 25%, respectively, year-to-date as of Friday. Risk-on sentiment and growing optimism about a bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund have pushed the crypto higher in the last quarter of the year. 

CME futures are now pricing in an 80% probability of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in or before March 2024. If all goes according to plan, it’s likely to bode well for stocks. 


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

The House on Thursday passed the CLARITY Act, a landmark cryptocurrency market structure bill

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro