Bitcoin Rolls Into December Above $38,000

While memecoins based on deceased diplomats and Bitcoin bashers rise and fall, the world's top crypto is simmering at high temperatures not seen in over a year, peeking above $38,000 early Friday, according to CoinGecko.

The price of BTC hit $38,077 less than 24 hours after touching $38,143 overnight on Wednesday. It's Bitcoin's third trip above $38K since last Friday, reaching levels not seen since May 2022. Back then, the crypto was midway through its long descent from its all-time high of more than $60,000 in October 2021 to as low as $16,500 by November 2022.

Today's high-water mark means Bitcoin has seen a more than 10% lift in the last 30 days, and a 121% increase in one year.

Bitcoin movements have been solid enough to spark bullish conversations, with a constant stream of news emerging about a slew of pending Bitcoin spot ETF applications (which grew by one on Wednesday) and not entirely bad readings from The Fed.

Perennial second-place digital asset Ethereum is also on the rise as December gets underway, climbing to $2,090 as of this writing, toward the $2,119 price it saw on Black Friday. ETH hasn't been in the neighborhood since surfacing above $2K in mid-April.

Ethereum is a long way from its all-time high of $4,732 on Nov. 11, 2021.

Meanwhile, Solana and Dogecoin have also seen solid gains over the past few weeks, now trading at over $60 and over $0.084, up 59% and 23% over 30 days, respectively.