Crypto prices rose overnight and into Wednesday morning, as bitcoin and ether gained value. Bitcoin was worth $28,330 at 3:30 a.m. EDT, an increase of 3.7% over the previous day. This bump in value came amid issues at First Republic, a U.S. bank that saw $102 billion in deposit outflows during the first quarter of the year, $72 billion more than expected. This has led to broader concerns about the U.S. banking system.
Banking issues in the U.S. have previously caused bitcoin’s value to increase, with some experts predicting a return to its core use case. Standard Chartered has declared that the “crypto winter is over,” and other analysts have predicted that bitcoin’s price may reach $45,000 by the end of the year.
However, JPMorgan analysts have warned that ether could face selling pressure following its recent upgrade, as Binance initiated Ethereum withdrawals this week. While this may put further pressure on ETH, the liquid staking protocol Lido Finance plans to enable ether withdrawals in May.
The recent bump in crypto prices resulted in shorts suffering a loss, with about $77 million in short positions across derivatives exchanges being liquidated in the past 24 hours. Most of the shorts were on Binance, OKX, and Bybit, with losses of $21 million, $14.9 million, and $12 million, respectively.
