Bitcoin climbs above $70,000 as more contrarian bottoming signs emerge

Crypto has added to a Sunday rally, with bitcoin rising above $70,000 in quiet post-Easter U.S. trading hours.

The gains come alongside a modest advance in the major stock market averages ahead of President Trump’s Tuesday ultimatum for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. Just past the noon hour on the East Coast, the Nasdaq is higher by 0.45% and the S&P 500 by 0.3%.

Bitcoin is now higher by nearly 4% over the past 24 hours, with ether, XRP and solana posting similar gains.

Contrarian bitcoin bulls — as bitcoin crashed to $60,000 in early February — first took hope that a bottom was forming, as the strongly no-coiner Financial Times took a victory lap.

The bulls may have been even more pleased over this past weekend by a couple of other bottoming signals. First was the late Friday news that Jeff Park was exiting his role as chief investment officer at ProCap Financial (BRR). Led by Anthony Pompliano, ProCap was among 2025’s hastily formed bitcoin treasury companies aiming to hitch their wagon to the $BTC bull market and replicate the success of Michael Saylor’s Strategy.

As with others of the 2025 crop — David Bailey’s Nakamoto (NAKA) and Jack Mallers’ Twenty One Capital (XXI) among them — ProCap stock has struggled mightily, performing far worse for shareholders than bitcoin itself.

Second was well-followed, longtime bull Willy Woo, suggesting that bitcoin could trade sideways for 8 to 12 years from here before finally entering a major bull market.

Other signals of the past couple of weeks: bitcoin miner MARA Holdings unloading more than 15,000 of its bitcoin stack, peer Riot Platforms selling off its entire March $BTC production of 3,778 coins, and the aforementioned Nakamoto parting with some its holdings.

Whether the true bottom is in remains to be seen, but the bottoming signs continue to grow.