Good morning. Today is Monday, March 4th. I'm your host for today,

Rina Sherbal filling in for Julie Morgan, who we all hope feels better soon.

Our top stories today. Bitcoin surges past $65,000,

Google could face antitrust claims,

and Japan's Nakea tops 40,000.

Bitcoin surge passed the $65,000 mark

during the early morning hours on Monday, edging closer to its all-time high of

69,000 set in November 2021.

Over the last 24 hours, the leading cryptocurrency has surged by over 6%, maintaining its upward momentum amidst renewed investor interest.

This surge has driven its market cap to a staggering 1.28 trillion.

The rise is likely fueled by the anticipation of strong demand for ETS at the beginning of the week.

The rally also triggered a surge in stocks linked to cryptocurrences, as several stocks witnessed significant gains in pre-market trading,

including Bit Digital by 10%, Clean Spark by 10%, Cypher Mining by 6.4%,

coin-based by 7.2, Riot Platforms by 5%, Marathon Digital by 7%, and Micro Strategy

just above that by 7.7%. On Friday a US judge ruled that Alphabet's Google should face advertisers' proposed class action

suit, alleging that the company monopolizes the ad exchange market reported Reuters.

However, the US District Judge dismissed other antitrust

claims which includes one aimed at ad buying tools used by big advertisers, the

report added. The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Google in January

2023 alleging that the company abused its dominance in digital

advertising. The agency requested the divestiture of the Google

Ad Manager Suite, including Google's Ad Exchange Adex.

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