Bitcoin Retakes $63,000 for the First Time in Two Weeks

Bitcoin traded above $63,000 on July 4, its highest price in two weeks, after rising 1.4% on the day and 3.6% across seven days. The move recovered ground lost in the closing days of June, when the market was still setting cycle lows. Ether did better, up 3.2% on the day to about $1,793 and 11.5% higher over the same seven days. Solana traded near $82.50 for a 13.2% weekly gain, and dogecoin added 2.6%. All of it happened in the thinnest conditions of the quarter, over a US holiday weekend with most institutional flow away from the market.

A two-week high on a 3.6% week

The level mattered mainly as a measure of how far the market had travelled in four sessions. Bitcoin began July at the cycle low it printed on the month's first trading day, then climbed in steps: back through $60,000 in the same session, above $61,000 on July 2, and past $63,000 by the weekend. That returned it to a price last held before June's final leg lower, trimming the tail end of a month that closed roughly 20% down.

The larger picture did not change. Bitcoin stayed far below its October 2025 record, and the July recovery so far amounted to retracing part of one bad month rather than the decline behind it. Reclaiming a price last seen a fortnight earlier is not the same achievement as breaking a downtrend. Traders drew that distinction openly through the week.

Ether up 11.5% on the week

Ether was the stronger of the two majors over the week, adding 3.2% on the day to around $1,793 and 11.5% across seven sessions, roughly three times bitcoin's weekly gain. Solana ran harder still on a weekly basis, sitting near $82.50 for a 13.2% seven-day gain, while dogecoin rose 2.6%. Second-tier assets outrunning bitcoin on the way up is the mirror image of June, when they fell faster, and it usually signals returning risk appetite, not money rotating into the safest corner of the asset class. Further down the board, XRP's advance to $1.18 moved it past USDC into fifth place by market value.

A thin book over a holiday weekend

Crypto trades around the clock. Its liquidity does not. When US markets are shut, the market-making desks and institutional flows that anchor the order book during New York hours largely step away, leaving a thinner book in which a given amount of buying moves the price further than it would on a normal weekday. That cuts both ways. Gains posted in holiday trading are easier to achieve and easier to give back, and single large orders carry outsized weight. A version of the same caveat applied two days earlier, when bitcoin jumped 4% above $61,000 in what the brokerage Marex called the first real bounce of the whole selloff.

The distinction that matters is between a price reached on thin volume and one confirmed by participation. Nothing about the July 4 tape settled that question, because volume over a holiday weekend is not comparable to the days on either side of it. The first full trading week of July would provide the test.

The $63,000 print still needs confirming

The immediate question was durability. A two-week high reached in holiday trading has to survive contact with weekday volume before it counts as support instead of a spike, and bitcoin had spent much of the back half of June failing at levels it briefly reclaimed. Breadth worked in the recovery's favor: ether, solana and dogecoin all participated, and the second tier's weekly gains were larger than bitcoin's, which had not been the case during the decline. The distance still to travel worked against it. June's drawdown was steep enough that a 3.6% week barely dents it, and the prices that would mark a genuine trend change sit well above the $63,000 print that closed out the weekend.