The price of bitcoin (BTC) has nudged above the $67,000 level for the first time in nearly one month as animal spirits in cryptocurrencies return following eight weeks of sideways-to-lower action.

At press time, bitcoin was trading at $67,250, up 2.8% over the past 24 hours and about 10% from its lowest levels on Monday. That lagged the broader CoinDesk 20 Index, which was ahead 4.4% over the past 24 hours and about 12% from the Monday low.

Among the larger movers in the index were Chainlink (LINK), now higher by 18% since the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) yesterday announced completion of a pilot project with Chainlink and multiple major U.S. financial institutions, aiming to help accelerate the tokenization of funds. Other outperformers today include ether (ETH) with a 5.3% advance and solana (SOL) gaining 7.7%.

The quick turnaround in sentiment in crypto comes after economic data this week showed a softening in U.S. inflation and regulatory filings showed an extraordinary amount of interest in the still newish spot bitcoin ETFs. Izzy Englander's $64 billion AUM Millennium Management disclosed a $2 billion position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as of the end of the first quarter and Paul Singer's $70 billion AUM Elliott Management also disclosed sizable bitcoin ETF holdings, though far smaller than Millennium's position. Perhaps most interestingly, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board – which manage's that state's retirement assets – showed about a $100 million stake in BlackRock's IBIT.

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Stephen Alpher

Stephen is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.