bitcoin has surged back this year helped by a growing us banking crisis thats cast serious doubts over the federal reserves ability to contain the situation subscribe now to forbes cryptoasset  blockchain advisor and successfully navigate the bitcoin and crypto market rollercoaster the bitcoin price has almost doubled since dropping to lows of around 15000 per bitcoin late last year climbing along with the ethereum price and other smaller cryptocurrencies as traders turn their attention to a looming 314 trillion earthquake now after a wellknown tech investor admitted hed burnt a million to tell you theyre printing trillions jpmorgan analysts have credited the us banking crisis with pushing retail traders toward bitcoin over recent months—a hedge against what they call a catastrophic scenario its at the beginning of a bull run you need uptodate information the most sign up now for the free cryptocodex—a daily newsletter for traders investors and the cryptocurious that will keep you ahead of the market the us banking crisis has increased the demand for gold as a proxy for lower real rates as well as a hedge against a catastrophic scenario jpmorgan strategists led by nikolaos panigirtzoglou and mika inkinen wrote in a note to clients seen by bloomberg adding that while institutional investors piled into gold retail investors have boosted their exposure to bitcoin as a buffer against the rising risk of a us recession this year the banking crisis that began with silicon valley bank and cryptofriendly banks silvergate and signature earlier this year has since claimed san fransiscos first republic and crashed the stock price of los angelesbased pacwest and arizonas western alliance the bank selloff this week came despite reassurances by federal reserve chair jerome powell that the us banking system remained sound and resilient following the feds 10th consecutive interest rate hike pushing rates to a 16year the feds rapid series of rate hikes has been partly blamed for the banks problems sign up now for cryptocodex—a free daily newsletter for the cryptocurious this weeks federal reserve interest rate hike will continue to add pressure to regional bank balance sheets nauman sheikh head of treasury management at bitcoin and crypto investment manager wave digital assets said in emailed comments it appears were back to macro factors driving markets against this backdrop were in a riskoff mode in crypto at the moment sheikh added pointing to the continued dominance of bitcoin relative to ethereum performance