Bitcoin’s price surged from $76,000 to nearly $79,000 on Friday after fresh reports about developments on the US–Iran front, before pulling back and settling around $78,000.
Most altcoins posted modest gains over the past 24 hours, including Ethereum, which climbed to about $2,300, and HYPE, which approached $42.
BTC Reaches $78K
The prior business week opened with a notable rally in the leading cryptocurrency. After trading sideways near $77,000 over the weekend, BTC jumped to $79,500 for the second time in the week. As in the earlier attempt, however, bears quickly stepped in and pushed prices lower.
Initially, BTC retreated to $77,500, then fell further to $76,500. Continued selling pressure drove the price down to $75,750 on Tuesday. Following an unsuccessful recovery attempt around $77,750, bitcoin slid to a weekly low near $75,000 after the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged for the third straight time in 2026.
From that local bottom, BTC rebounded to $76,500 on Thursday and climbed to almost $79,000 on reports that Iran submitted another peace proposal to the US. The rally stalled, however, after the US president judged the proposal insufficient, leaving bitcoin trading just above $78,000.
Market capitalization for BTC stands near $1.57 trillion, while its dominance over alternative cryptocurrencies remains comfortably above 58% on CoinGecko.
ZEC Surges Again
Ethereum has returned to roughly $2,300 after a modest 1% uptick. XRP remains below $1.40 despite a similar daily rise, and many analysts are watching for a potentially larger move. Among the top 15 altcoins, HYPE led gains with about a 3% increase to nearly $42.
Outside the top tier, ZEC captured attention by jumping nearly 8% to $380. HASH and SIREN posted gains near 6% each, while TAO rose about 5% to $273. TRX and BCH recorded smaller advances, whereas BNB and LINK traded slightly lower.
The aggregated market capitalization of all crypto assets has stayed relatively steady around $2.68 trillion on CoinGecko.