Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed the $91,000 level in early U.S. afternoon hours on Friday, continuing volatile action and threatening to sustainably break out of its tight week-long range of roughly $88,000-$90,000.
Possibly behind the quick 2% move off of the morning’s lows was suspected intervention in the foreign exchange market by Japanese authorities. The Bank of Japan overnight left monetary policy unchanged, but was somewhat hawkish in its policy statement. That had the yen modestly stronger versus the U.S. dollar — a move that quickly compounded just after the noon hour on the U.S. east coast, with some traders saying the action had the hallmarks of FX intervention.
For all the talk about President Trump, Greenland, tariffs, precious metals, AI, and any number of other headline-making subjects, there is a sizable cohort of traders who believe the weakening yen exchange rate in recent months — and the implications for leveraged carry trades — is behind the struggles of bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
To the extent that that weakness is reversed, those same traders believe risk assets like crypto could benefit.
Bitcoin miners, including those with increasing exposure to artificial intelligence infrastructure, reversed all their early declines into a strong rally. Iren (IREN), Hut 8 (HUT), TeraWulf (WULF) and CleanSpark (CLSK) were up 5%-10% despite starting the session in the red. Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate bitcoin holder, bounced 5% from Friday's low. Down sharply early on Friday, Coinbase (COIN) narrowed its loss to just 1%.
U.S. stocks have also reversed an early decline, with the Nasdaq now higher by 0.6%.
Precious metals continue to soar, with silver now higher by more than 5% to $101.44 per ounce and gold ahead 1.5% to just a few dollars shy of $5,000. Platinum and palladium are up more than 6% each.