Here are this week's top performers as Bitcoin (BTC) price holds above $69,000 (Weekend Watch)

Bitcoin, like the rest of the market, has had a very profitable week driven by the hype and actual approval of a spot Ethereum ETF in the US.

On a weekly scale, we can see that UNI, PEPE, LDO, and ETH are among the top performers in terms of gains from large altcoins.

BTC's weekly surge

Last Sunday, the leading cryptocurrency struggled to stay above $66,000 and fell below that level several times. Monday started in a similar vein, but the way it ended was nothing short of spectacular.

Amid reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may approve eight Ethereum spot ETFs that week, BTC surged by more than $5,000, approaching $72,000 for the first time in six weeks. However, the asset was unable to sustain the gains and began to decline in value in the following days.

The worst of the price drop came just hours before U.S. securities regulators were set to actually approve these instruments on Thursday, sending BTC plummeting to as low as $66,400, but by Friday it had rebounded and surged to $69,000.

Despite a quiet weekend, Bitcoin managed to defend the $69,000 level, bringing its market cap to nearly $1.37 trillion and giving it a 50.3% advantage over altcoins.

PEPE Week

As expected to some extent, the news had a major impact on Ethereum’s native token. ETH caught the momentum and soared from $3,100 to over $3,900, its highest price since early April. The second-largest cryptocurrency also saw volatility following the SEC approval, but has risen 22% in the past week and is currently near $3,800.

DOGE, LINK and APT have also seen impressive weekly gains, but it's Uniswap and PEPE that are leading the charts: UNI has surged 44% to over $11, while PEPE has hit several all-time highs this week.

In contrast, SOL, TRX, TON and ADA are all in the red on a weekly basis. Yet, the cryptocurrency market cap has increased by over $200 billion in this period and now stands at over $2.7 trillion.