Bitcoin surges above $54,000, Ethereum pops

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is pushing $55,000 and Ethereum (ETH-USD) is nearing $3,200 amid a broad rise in crypto and crypto-related assets on Monday.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Yahoo Finance Senior Markets Reporter Jared Blikre breaks down the market action.

Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JOSH LIPTON: Broader markets seeing muted action in today's trade, but the big move is in crypto. Let's get it over to Jared Blikre for more. Jared.

JARED BLIKRE: That's right, Josh. We got some milestones in the rearview mirror. It seems like only hours ago I was talking about Bitcoin, 52,000. Now it's Bitcoin, 54,500. And Ethereum really stealing the show today-- it's only up 2% over the last 24 hours, but it has finally cleared 3,000. And it was kind of flirting with that number last week. Now it has decisively moved above it.

And now what's in sight here? We got the record highs basically for Bitcoin and Ethereum. For Bitcoin, we're looking probably at 60,000-- that's going to be one of the biggest resistance levels-- and in Ethereum, probably in the low 4,000s here. The remains, quite a bit of price memory, but we've seen Bitcoin and Ethereum slice through these previous highs before in prior cycles.

And what do I mean by cycle? Well, we're coming up against another halvening in Bitcoin that has always been a bullish catalyst that just kind of brings to the forefront the time when, I guess, the imagination that there is a limited supply, total finite supply of Bitcoin. And the miners, they drop out in these halvenings. So that's going to come in a couple of months.

But with respect to Ethereum, let me just stick on that for a second because there is a key upgrade coming March 12th, March 13th called "Dencun," D-E-N-C-U-N. And this is going to upgrade the speed of the network, basically going to make it more compatible with some of the upstarts like Solana.

And let me just show you a Solana chart that has really exploded to the upside today. Here's a five-year look. But over the last three months, largely trading sideways. But we do have a range expansion today-- doesn't mean a whole lot until we clear 125. But given the length of the consolidation here, I would expect that punch above to have some momentum with it.

And then just thinking overall about Bitcoin, the behemoth here, I mentioned 60,000 as a price target level. Actually, the highs are about just shy of 70,000. But I would say 60,000 is probably the last stand here. And we are rapidly approaching that point. You got to imagine, what are the potential negative catalysts? I don't see a lot.

There could be another sell the news event with something, but we got Binance kind of behind us. We're still waiting for the sentencing for CZ. But a lot of those crypto obstacles that mired cryptocurrency in that crypto winter, most of those have disappeared. And so it seems like bright skies ahead for the crypto land.

JULIE HYMAN: Put your shades on. Thanks so much, Jared. Appreciate it.