Bitcoin hits a new record of $72,000, with nearly 1,500 "millionaires" added daily, and GameFi outperforms the market

Crypto markets extended their gains on Monday while U.S. stocks faltered, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 closing slightly lower, with the Nasdaq Composite down 0.4%, the S&P 500 down 0.1%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.12%.

The crypto market surged again, with Bitcoin hitting a new record again after UK regulators opened the door to exchanges listing crypto ETFs, rising above $72,000 and hitting $72,970 at one point during the session, while Ethereum climbed above $4,000.

In the past week, Bitcoin has broken through its all-time high in November 2021 three times: on Tuesday, Friday and over the weekend, breaking through the $69,100, $69,200 and $70,000 marks respectively.

According to Kaiko Research data, during Bitcoin's record rally, about 1,500 new "million-dollar wallets" were added every day. The highest number of new "million-dollar wallets" so far this year was on March 1, with 1,691 new "million-dollar wallets".

Since the launch of the US Bitcoin ETF in January this year, demand has been extremely strong. Kaiko Research said that even so, the current number of new million-dollar wallets added daily is still lower than the last bull market in 2021, when an average of more than 4,000 wallets broke the million-dollar threshold every day.

The new rise benefited from multiple positive news.

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority said in an announcement on Monday that it would not object to requests from compliant exchanges to list cryptocurrency-backed exchange-traded notes (ETNs) for trading by professional investors.

On the same day, former US President Donald Trump said that if he were to win the White House again, his administration might take an active stance on cryptocurrencies. As the "showdown" between Biden and Trump begins, the two's attitudes towards the crypto industry have attracted much attention from voters.

In addition, MicroStrategy announced that it had purchased 12,000 bitcoins for $821.7 million, the second largest increase in the enterprise software maker's position since it began its "buy, buy, buy" nearly four years ago. According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ), the tokens were purchased between February 26 and March 10, with funds mainly coming from the proceeds of the private sale of $800 million in convertible notes.

The new reserves bring MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings to approximately 205,000, with an average cost price of $33,706 per coin and a total value of more than $14 billion.

Market data shows that since MicroStrategy began buying Bitcoin, the company's stock price has soared more than 1,000%, and its market value has increased to about $25.7 billion. As of Monday's close, MicroStrategy's stock price rose 4.11% to $1,484.23.

Due to the strong demand for spot ETFs, investors are now in urgent need of more Bitcoin, the supply and demand relationship of BTC will become tighter, and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor believes that Bitcoin will go higher.

Saylor said in a CNBC interview: “The natural sellers are miners, and miners can only sell a maximum of 900 bitcoins per day now. By the end of April (after the halving), they can only sell 450 bitcoins per day. As long as the demand in the market exceeds 450 bitcoins per day, there is no catalyst that can drive this asset down. As demand increases, there is no reason why BTC will not continue to adjust to find marginal supply.”

Altcoins start the week strongly, with GameFi outperforming the broader crypto market

The altcoin market started the week strongly, with most of the top 200 tokens by market cap seeing gains, with the GameFi sector’s market cap up more than 30% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the 3% increase in the total crypto market cap over the same period. According to Coingecko data, the total value of tokens associated with web3 games is currently $4.38 billion.

Data shows that in the past 24 hours, GameFi token Gala has risen by more than 3%. In the past 30 days, it has risen by 228%, The Sandbox 's Sand token has risen by 91%, and Axie Infinity 's AXS has soared by 71%.

Nansen analysts see next week’s Game Developers Conference as a boost to web3 game developer activity. “Gaming tokens are rising in anticipation of the upcoming event, with investors seeking higher yields outside of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as the market begins to heat up,” Nansen analyst Edward Wilson said in a report.

Artificial intelligence-related crypto tokens have also surged over the past week. RNDR , the native token of AI art platform Render , has risen more than 64% over the past week and is currently trading at $11.99. GRT, the native token of The Graph protocol, has risen 42% over the past week and 164% over the past month, currently trading at $0.44.

The current overall cryptocurrency market capitalization is $2.72 trillion, with Bitcoin’s market capitalization dominance at 52.2%.