MUMBAI - Bitcoin jumped past the US$20,000 level on Tuesday and cryptocurrencies as a whole climbed back above US$1 trillion (S$1.43 trillion) in market value, helped by a hiatus in the turmoil that gripped global markets this week.

The largest token added as much as 6.1 per cent as at 12.30pm in Tokyo, reaching the highest in more than a week. Ether, Solana and Avalanche also rose.

The gains came amid a bout of relative calm in global markets after bruising sell-offs for stocks, bonds and commodities in the face of rapidly tightening monetary policy to fight inflation and concerns about a recession.

Over the past month digital tokens have proved more resilient than traditional assets, stirring speculation that the worst may be over for crypto. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 100 Index shed about 1 per cent in that period versus losses of 6 per cent for global bonds, more than 10 per cent for world stocks and 11 per cent for commodities.

"Our short-term gauges support a rebound this week," Ms Katie Stockton, founder of Fairlead Strategies, a research firm focused on technical analysis, wrote in a note on Monday. "However, we only feel comfortable moving to a short-term neutral stance because we expect the bounce to fail quickly."

Bitcoin at US$20,000 is far off the record high of almost US$69,000 hit in November last year. The overall market value of digital tokens is US$2 trillion lower than 2021's peak, according to CoinGecko data.

For Mr James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, investor appetite for digital assets remains "tepid". But he added that excitement about the upgrade of the Ethereum blockchain, the most commercially important network, has helped sentiment. BLOOMBERG