Bitcoin (BTC) once again led the headlines in the crypto market this week after King Crypto rallied to a new all-time high near $112,000 amid geopolitical de-risking and rising turmoil in the Japanese bond market.
Data provided by TradingView shows that after stabilizing near $106,000 last Tuesday, BTC bulls charged on Wednesday to rally above $110,000, then extended their run to the new record high of $112,000 on Thursday.
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
Market watchers attributed the rally to a variety of factors, including President Trump’s announcement of Russia–Ukraine ceasefire talks on May 19, the pause of high tariffs on EU trading partners in the US, and turmoil in bond markets.
In the US, the 10-Year Treasury note hit nearly 4.63%, while the US30Y hit 5.153%, its highest level since October 2023. But the real story was in Japan, where the 30-year yield on Japanese bonds reached a new all-time high of 3.185% on May 20, 2025, before retreating to 3.115% on May 23.
While government bonds are typically considered safe-haven assets, the recent sharp rise in yields suggests that investor concerns around fiscal sustainability and repayment risk are rising.
“Because yields are increasing, sustainability becomes more of an issue, meaning credit risk increases, meaning yields increase even more,” said André Dragosch, Head of European Research at Bitwise. “And so you end up in this kind of fiscal debt doom loop.”
He suggested that the increasing volatility in Japan’s bond market may be prompting some institutional investors to reconsider Bitcoin’s role as a hedge against sovereign default risk, noting that “This is now affecting other bond markets, especially the US Treasury market.”
With bond market instability rising, highlighting sovereign credit risk concerns, Dragosch underscored Bitcoin’s increasing appeal as an “immutable asset” that is “free of counterparty risk” and serves as “a hedge against sovereign risk and sovereign default.”
He added that if things continue on their current track, rising yields could help push Bitcoin towards $200,000, before noting that this remains conditional on continued Bitcoin accumulation by corporations and exchange-traded fund (ETF) holders.
For now, that seems likely the case. As noted in last week’s crypto update, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan and noted Bitcoin basher, announced the bank will soon allow its clients to purchase Bitcoin ETFs.
But in crypto, nothing is certain. According to analysts at Bitfinex, “The coming weeks will likely determine whether Bitcoinʼs latest breakout was a local high or the prelude to a more aggressive leg higher in Q3.”
As for the altcoin market, it was another relatively quiet week as all eyes were on Bitcoin, minus a few breakout tokens. Ether (ETH), for its part, reclaimed a key technical level – the mid-line (~$2,600) of the Gaussian Channel on the 2-week chart – which has historically preceded sharp price gains and marked the start of an “altseason” across multiple market cycles in the last five years.
It has finally happened.??$ETH has reclaimed the mid-line in the 2W Gaussian Channel.
Each time it managed to do so, strong rallies followed for the entire altcoin market (2021 and 2024 as an example).
Altseason isn’t just a meme.. it’s coming ladies & gentleman pic.twitter.com/jQx1SCXvMo
— ???????ⓗ? ? (@el_crypto_prof) May 27, 2025
As noted by market analyst Moustache, this development has once again rekindled expectations that an altseason is fast approaching.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $109,070, and Ether trades at $2,645.
Stablecoins Go Mainstream
While it was largely a week of consolidation for the crypto market, the asset class – particularly stablecoins – stepped into the TradFi limelight as Circle, the issuer of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, launched an initial public offering (IPO) of 24 million shares of its Class A common stock.
Stablecoins have become a hot topic in the realm of payments, and Circle’s IPO launch suggests they will continue to play an expanding role. Thus, it’s not surprising that the IPO launch coincided with the launch of the Circle Payments Network (CPN) Mainnet – a blockchain-powered payments coordination protocol that allows banks and payment providers to exchange payment instructions securely and settle in real time using USDC on public blockchains.
Circle Payments Network Mainnet is officially live!
Today marks a major milestone for Circle, for @USDC, and for the future of stablecoin powered payments.
It started as an idea, but with our first transactions already happening on CPN, it has become a reality.
Cross border… pic.twitter.com/hC4ihmIPnN
— Circle (@circle) May 21, 2025
While the announcement may seem innocuous to some, the stakes are high in the payments space, and the competition is heating up. For evidence of this, look no further than X, which announced that X Money, the payment and banking app tipped by Elon Musk in 2022 after he acquired Twitter, has started beta testing, Musk confirmed in an X post on May 25.
This will be a very limited access beta at first. When people’s saving are involved, extreme care must be taken.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 25, 2025
Ready to trade our daily Forex analysis on Bitcoin? Here’s our list of the best MT4 crypto brokers worth reviewing.
