FX.co ★ Crypto rises as geopolitical tensions ease

Bitcoin rose above $44,000 on Tuesday, thanks to easing geopolitical tensions in Ukraine. The return of risk appetite prompted a 5.2% gain in the cryptocurrency, thereby raising it to $44,449.

Ether also increased by 7%, while Solana jumped by more than 9%. Ripple, on the other hand, rallied by 5%, while Dogecoin rose 4%.

"The level of geopolitical tension that has existed over the last three weeks for right now appears to be easing," said Kenny Polcari, managing partner at Kace Capital Advisors. "That is why there is this sense of people jumping back in looking for bargain hunting," he noted.

Meanwhile, James Butterfill of CoinShares said that crypto is "quite sensitive to rising interest rates, but what happens in a situation where you have a policy mistake, i.e. the Fed hikes too aggressively, for instance, or they don't hike aggressively enough, and there's an inflation problem. That would actually probably be much more supportive of Bitcoin and less supportive for equities."

Bitcoin rose on recent market anxiety over Ukraine, dropping 2.7% on Friday. Proponents often tout an uncorrelated link to broader markets, yet the asset class continues to mimic stock movements, especially tech stocks, where the correlation coefficient between Nasdaq 100 and Bitcoin is currently 0.4.