Major coins remained buoyant on Monday evening as the global cryptocurrency market cap rose 0.5% to $989.5 billion at 7:48 p.m. EST. 

See Also: Best Ways To Earn Free Cryptocurrency 

Why It Matters: Bitcoin and Ethereum were higher on Monday as the New-Year rally remained intact. However, the momentum was muted in other risk assets like stocks as investors look ahead to corporate earnings season.

“There's certainly an increasing sense of optimism about 2023 as we make our way through the opening month of the year. The economic data has been kind, to say the least, which is not something we were afforded for the vast majority of the year just gone,” said Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at OANDA.

“A boost in risk appetite has triggered a surge in bitcoin which spent the final weeks of last year languishing between $16,000 and $17,000. It is up more than 25% since the turn of the year, breaking back above $20,000 this morning in the process,” said the analyst in a note seen by Benzinga.

Erlam said it wasn’t clear outright if it is a sign of bottoming out or a brief rebound but there are “clearly still some very bullish traders out there.”

Michaël van de Poppe said that Bitcoin is trying to “break resistance” and might “seek a sweep” of the $21,600 level. He said eyes will be on the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six other currencies, in the coming days. At the time of writing, the dollar index was at 102.30. 

Glassnode said that Bitcoin has seen “greater volumes of Profits realized on-chain than losses” for the first time since June.

Separately, the on-chain analysis firm said that a “convincing break” above 1.0 for Realized profit/loss ratio, or aSOPR metrics has “historically [signaled] a cycle regime shift is underway.”

“A successful retest and bounce of aSOPR from 1.0 is often observed near cycle turning points,” said Glassnode.

aSOPR or adjusted Output Profit Ratio is a metric that tracks the ratio of spent outputs in profit in a given timeframe. 

Santiment said that cryptocurrency traders are behaving like they are seeing a top and are taking the “opportunity to profit take while given the chance.”

The market intelligence platform said that Bitcoin is seeing the highest profit-take ratio since Feb. 2021, while in the case of Ethereum, it has been the case since Oct. 2021.

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