The price of bitcoin (BTC) has set a record high, rising above $69,000 on crypto exchange Coinbase, a level first touched on Nov. 10, 2021. A continuing massive wave of buying by the newish U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs is the likely catalyst behind what’s now a historic run higher. The price of bitcoin sat at around $45,000 at the time the ETFs opened for business on Jan. 11. Following a brief “sell the news” dip to the $39,000 area, bitcoin quickly rallied above $50,000 by mid-February. After meandering around the $51,000 level for a couple of weeks, prices took off again to the upside towards the end of the month. “Hard to predict where we stop,” early bitcoin adopter and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz posted on X on Feb. 28, when the record was in sight. “Bitcoin is in price discovery phase. Maybe really for the first time since it’s been an asset as now the bulk of U.S. wealth has easy access.” Novogratz’s Galaxy, teaming with asset management giant Invesco, is among the issuers of the 10 U.S.-based spot ETFs now available. Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise – another of the spot ETF issuers – suggested things are just getting started, with $250,000 bitcoin nearing faster than even bulls might fathom. Market observers say that bitcoin, the world’s largest digital asset with a market cap of now well over $1 trillion, stepped into a bull market in mid-2023 when BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, began the process of filing to list a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). This would mark the third bull run for bitcoin, which is driven by the market’s acceptance of bitcoin as an institutional-grade asset class via the ETF alongside macroeconomic factors that are going in bitcoin’s favor.
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