Bitcoin Round-Trips Its Way Back Under $35K as Fidelity's Timmer Calls It 'Exponential Gold'

A late Wednesday/early Thursday pump higher in bitcoin (BTC) saw the price nearly punch through $36,000 for what would have been the first time since the spring of 2022. The move, however, appeared to trigger a wave of sell orders, with bitcoin now having tumbled almost $1,300 over the past few hours to the current $34,700.

The slide in bitcoin's price is particularly notable as risk assets across the board are sharply higher on Thursday. In the U.S., the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are each ahead by 1.5%, and Europe's Stoxx 600 is up 1.8%. Traditional markets are rallying alongside steep declines in interest rates on growing conventional thinking that major Western central banks may be done with rate hikes. The Bank of England this morning followed the U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday in holding policy steady. One week ago, the European Central Bank did the same.

Despite the pullback, bitcoin does remain higher by 1.25% over the past 24 hours, slightly underperforming the broad CoinDesk Market Index's (CMI) 1.6% gain.

Perhaps inspired by bitcoin's big gains of late, Fidelity Director of Global Macro Jurrien Timmer tweeted that it might be time to revisit his 2020 bullish thesis on the crypto.

"Bitcoin is a commodity currency that aspires to be a store of value and a hedge against monetary debasement," said Timmer. "I think of it as exponential gold."

He continued: "During structural regimes in which inflation runs hot, real rates are negative, and/or money supply growth is excessive, gold tends to shine ... Can bitcoin be a player on the same team? I think the potential is there."