Cryptocurrency prices started the week on a strong note, with bitcoin (BTC-USD) shrugging of its recent corrective phase and changing hands near its all-time high.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) drove up 7% to $69.7K at 12:05 p.m. ET, just below its $73.1K record high recorded earlier this month. Gains were broad-based in the crypto market, with ether (ETH-USD) gapping up 5.5%, Cardano (ADA-USD) +4.4%, solana (SOL-USD) +9.5%, dogecoin (DOGE-USD) +5.2% and avalanche (AVAX-USD) +9.4%.

The intraday rally in bitcoin (BTC-USD) came after the highest-profile token last week sold off as market participants grew more cautious ahead of the highly-anticipated halving event next month. It will be interest to see whether BTC volatility will remain elevated going into the event, as some have called for consolidation.

SA analyst Richard Durant recently said he is “not particularly convinced of the importance of halvings as a price catalyst. All existing Bitcoin can potentially be a source of supply, rather than just newly mined Bitcoin, calling into question the importance of the halving, particularly now that Bitcoin’s inflation rate is quite low.”

Meantime, crypto-linked stocks were mostly trading in the green, including: Riot Platforms (RIOT) +6.8%, Marathon Digital (MARA) +2.4%, CleanSpark (CLSK) +16.9%, Hut 8 (HUT) +5.1%, MicroStrategy (MSTR) +17.6%, Coinbase (COIN) +9.6% and Bakkt (BKKT) +1.4%.