Cryptocurrencies started the week on a strong footing with bitcoin BTC$73,470.16 surging above $74,000 and U.S. equities bounced as oil prices eased.

In morning U.S. trade, BTC hit its strongest price since early February at $74,500, up 3.9% over the past 24 hours. The largest crypto broke out of its six-week range, boosting sentiment across the broader market and lifting appetite for smaller, riskier tokens.

Bitcoin's bounce from its earlier February bottom of $60,000 is now nearing 25%, a notable move given several bounces of about that amount during 2022's long crypto winter. These rebounds failed multiple times that year before the final November flush to below $16,000, which came alongside the FTX collapse.

Altcoins are outpacing bitcoin over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and ADA$0.2856 have each climes more than 7%, suggesting renewed appetite for higher risk crypto assets after a period when capital largely concentrated in bitcoin.

U.S. equity indexes also were making moves higher after recent losses. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were each more than 1% higher in the morning trading. Meanwhile, oil prices, a key driver of recent macro volatility, pulled back. Crude futures dropped about 4% Monday after briefly topping $100 per barrel over the weekend on Iranian strikes on energy infrastructure in the Middle East.

The Monday action happened as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz — a critical oil shipping route between the Persian Gulf and global markets — appeared to ease slightly. U.S. President Donald Trump called on other nations to help secure the waterway, while some Pakistani oil tankers reportedly have crossed the Strait, suggesting that traffic through the corridor has not been fully disrupted.

Crypto-related stocks were higher on Monday, with Circle (CRCL) up 6%. Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN) were about 5% and 3% higher, respectively.

Bitcoin miners gain too

Amsterdam-based AI infrastrcuture provider Nebius (NBIS) signed an agreement with Meta (META) valued at up to approximately $27 billion, marking one of the largest AI compute partnerships announced this year.

Under the five-year deal, Nebius will provide roughly $12 billion in dedicated AI compute capacity across multiple locations. The infrastructure will be built on one of the first large-scale deployments of NVIDIA systems, designed to support Meta’s expanding AI workloads.

Shares of Nebius rose about 13% following the announcement, while Meta gained 2.5%.

The deal appears to be lifting sentiment across the broader AI compute and data center cohort. Among bitcoin-related names: IREN (IREN) was higher by 6%, Galaxy Digital (GLXY) by 8%, and Cipher Mining (CIFR) by 7%.

While, TeraWulf (WULF) secured a $500 million, 364 day senior secured bridge facility led by Morgan Stanley to fund construction of its Hawesville, Kentucky data center, providing development capital while longer term project financing is arranged. Shares are up about 12% following the announcement.