On March 17, the price of the leading cryptocurrency surged to $75,900, a level not seen since early February.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $74,200 (+0.9% over the past day).
Meanwhile, Ethereum's price jumped to $2,300, gaining 2.4% in the last 24 hours and 13.5% over the week. The asset outpaced Bitcoin in growth rates amid the return of institutional investors.
In the past 24 hours, the total liquidation volume in the crypto market reached $498 million, with $329 million attributed to short positions. Bitcoin traders faced the largest losses.
The popular market sentiment indicator rose to 28, moving out of the "extreme fear" zone, marking its highest level since late January. However, uncertainty still prevails among investors.
What’s Driving Cryptocurrency Prices Up?
Marcus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, attributes the price increase largely to the closing of short positions that traders had opened during February's downturn.
“Traders are closing put options with strike prices of $55,000 and $60,000 en masse. They realized these contracts are unlikely to be in the money by expiration and began exiting their positions. The unwinding of these protective hedges has pushed the price up,” he noted.
Rick Maeda from Presto Research pointed out the resurgence of institutional demand. Over the past week, spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $767.3 million, while Ethereum funds garnered $160.8 million.
Positive sentiment was bolstered by purchases from Strategy. Last week, the company acquired 22,337 BTC for $1.57 billion, marking one of its largest transactions.
🗣️ According to social data, the top trending coins driving markets across social media are:
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) March 16, 2026
🪙 Bitcoin $BTC: Large, institutional-scale BTC accumulation by MicroStrategy: the company bought 22,337 BTC (~$1.57B) during March 9–15, 2026 using primarily its STRC preferred‑share… pic.twitter.com/9VUUNGEejP
QCP noted that the digital asset market has “turned around despite the geopolitical storm.” Bitcoin and Ethereum are rising while traditional markets remain under pressure.
“If this pattern holds, we could witness an unexpected turnaround at the end of the quarter—considering the cryptocurrency's status as an outsider and its tendency to correlate with traditional assets primarily during downturns,” analysts wrote.
They added that the recent price dynamics have revived the narrative of Bitcoin as a “digital safe haven.” This is also suggested by a spike in on-chain activity and a fresh influx of capital into stablecoins. Previously, the supply of USDC reached a record $81.1 billion.
Additionally, analysts at Santiment pointed out a positive signal for Bitcoin, noting that large holders have begun to accumulate positions in the asset again.