I challenge you to name another market hotter than cryptocurrency right now.

You’re probably struggling to think of anything besides cryptocurrency that’s generating massive gains on a similar scale. Nvidia (NSDQ: NVDA) and microchip-related stocks that benefit from the boom in both crypto and artificial intelligence (AI) come to mind. But their gains still pale by comparison.

That’s because the crypto market is in the middle of a historic heater, and it’s kicking off perhaps the hottest bull market in its nascent history. I really can’t overstate just how impressively bullish this market is right now. I’m seeing more upward momentum at this point in the cycle than I’ve ever seen before.

I’ve been cautiously expecting a small pullback for the last few weeks, but Bitcoin (BTC) has powered through at every stage. In fact, for the first time in my crypto career, I think BTC may break to a new all-time high before the halving even takes place.

A Bitcoin halving is a situation within Bitcoin’s protocol that requires the Bitcoin block reward to be cut in half every 210,000 blocks.

The most recent Bitcoin halving event took place in May 2020. The next Bitcoin halving is set for April 2024. The purpose of halving is to decrease the number of new coins entering the network, which raises the value of Bitcoin yet to be mined, making it a more attractive asset to investors.

For perspective, Bitcoin typically doesn’t hit a new all-time high until over 200 days after the halving date. You can see in the image below from Rekt Capital that in the past two cycles it took Bitcoin about 214 days after the halving to break to new all-time highs:

This current bull run is on an accelerated timeline compared to previous markets and is approaching new all-time highs much faster than in past cycles. The most likely explanation for this is the release of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which appear to be making a bigger difference than many expected. Investors could also be purchasing BTC in anticipation of the forthcoming halving.

Whatever the reason, there has been a considerable infusion of new volume into the crypto market. In fact, this recent explosion in prices has sent investors into a frenzy.

The massive surge in user volume caused a recent malfunction in the Coinbase (NSDQ: COIN) app that resulted in Coinbase user accounts temporarily showing a zero balance. As one might expect, Coinbase users were less than pleased.

This outage temporarily prevented users from buying or selling on a volatile trading day so it is understandable that users were very unhappy. Users could log in to the platform but were unable to trade anything, and account balances read zero, incorrectly. Given past problems with other crypto exchanges like FTX, users panicked.

It’s important to note that Coinbase fixed the issue in a matter of hours and currently all is good on the Coinbase app and website. This issue was native only to Coinbase and other exchanges remained functional throughout the outage.

Here is Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on the issue, via X: “We had modeled a ~10x surge in traffic and load tested it. This [surge in volume] exceeded that number.”

Despite the temporary inconvenience, Coinbase users can rest assured that their funds were never at risk. The recent glitch, while disruptive, was isolated to the Coinbase platform and did not affect the actual balances or holdings of users. Following the swift resolution of the issue, all account balances were promptly restored, ensuring that customers remained financially whole.

It almost seems like exchange outages are par for the course of a crypto bull market and this was certainly not the first time something like this has happened. Consider the outages as uncomfortable growing pains of a fledgling digital financial industry.

The price of BTC did take a hit when the outage occurred, dropping from as high as $64,000 down to a brief wicking low of $58,000. However, Bitcoin quickly stabilized above $60,000. At the time of this writing, BTC is trading near $62,000, showing just how strong this momentum has been (see chart).

One question we’re looking to answer in the coming months is whether or not this surge in volume due to the spot ETFs will result in higher prices of Bitcoin relative to the rest of the crypto market.

In past cycles money tended to flow into Bitcoin first, followed by Ethereum (ETH), then other blue chips, down to smaller projects and so forth until investors took profits and shoveled the cash back into Bitcoin, starting the process anew. Rinse and repeat until the end of the bull market.

However, since this new volume is coming from the spot Bitcoin ETFs, and investors don’t have any other spot crypto ETFs to buy as of now, will the money stay in BTC this time around?

We can’t know the answer to this question just yet, but it is an important reminder that no crypto portfolio is complete without a sizable allocation to Bitcoin. In crypto, Bitcoin is still the king and I don’t expect anything to usurp BTC soon.

Alex Benfield is the lead analyst of Crypto Investing Digest.

Questions or comments? Drop Alex a line: mailbag@investingdaily.com

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This article previously appeared on Investing Daily.