Bitcoin started Monday morning with a spectacular rise and broke through the $17,000 mark for the first time since mid-December 2022. The asset has gained 1.6% in the last 24 hours, with BTC at $17,246 at the time of writing.

According to CoinMarketCap, one of the world's most-referenced price-tracking websites for cryptoassets, Bitcoin reached a low of $16,928 and a high of $17,234 over the past 24 hours.

The cryptocurrency closed last trading week in the green zone, gaining 2.2% and ending at $17,000.

Experts believe that the growth of US stock indices is the key reason why Bitcoin grew last week. At the end of Friday, the S&P 500 stock index grew by 2.28%, NASDAQ Composite - by 2.56%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average - by 2.13%.

By the way, since the beginning of 2022, analysts increasingly began to emphasize the high level of correlation between the US stock market and virtual assets amid tense expectations of both the consequences of the geopolitical conflict in eastern Europe and the further steps of the Federal Reserve.

Earlier, experts of the investment company Arcane Research said that Bitcoin's correlation to tech stocks has climbed to highs not seen since July 2020.

In addition, the day before, economists from analytical platform TradingView reported that the correlation of the cryptocurrency market with the US stock market reached 70% in the past quarter.

Bitcoin lost 3.3% of its value in December 2022. The cryptocurrency's price has plummeted 65% in the year gone by. At the same time, BTC has lost more than 70% in value from record highs in November 2021. Also, many other virtual assets have fallen sharply from their record levels.

Altcoin market

Ethereum, Bitcoin's main competitor, also started the week with growth. At the time of writing, the coin was trading at $1,311. In the last 24 hours, the asset rose in price by 3.6%.

As for cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization, all coins were trading in the green zone within the past 24 hours. Cardano (+19.70%) showed the best results.

At the end of last week, Cardano (+32.46%) also had the best results in the top 10 of the strongest digital assets.

According to CoinGecko, the world's largest aggregator of data on virtual assets, over the past 24 hours, all coins, except for some stablecoins, showed a positive trend. At the same time, Zilliga (+34.30%) and Solana (+21.6%) tokens took the first and second places in the list of growth.

At the end of last week, as part of the first hundred strongest digital assets, the worst results were shown by the digital asset OCV (-8.1%), and the best - Lido DAO (+81.13%).

According to CoinGecko, as of Monday evening, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has finally managed to consolidate above the important key level of $800 billion and stands at $807.165 billion. Despite this, it has more than tripled since November 2021, when the figure exceeded the $3 trillion level.