March 8, 2024
By Anjali Kochhar
After more than two years of declines that had raised concerns about the viability of the entire cryptocurrency industry, Bitcoin reached an all-time high on Tuesday.
The oldest and by far biggest digital currency in the world, Bitcoin, surpassed the previous high of $68,789 set on November 10, 2021, when it went beyond $69,000 on Tuesday morning, according to CoinMarketCap.
The licensing of exchange-traded funds linked to Bitcoin by US regulators has accelerated the price increase of the digital currency during the last few months, providing a pathway for more conventional investors to include Bitcoin in their investment portfolios.
After years of lobbying by cryptocurrency companies, the Securities and Exchange Commission reluctantly approved the clearance after a judge determined that the regulator’s justifications for denying applications for bitcoin ETFs were “arbitrary and capricious.”
The first 11 “spot” bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) went live in January, tracking the asset’s current market price.
According to Bloomberg, the ETFs had generated net new flows of more than $4.2 billion in just one month.
ETFs are financial instruments that trade stock market exchange but track a variety of assets. A Bitcoin ETF’s ability to expose clients to Bitcoin through their typical brokerage house rather than requiring them to create a digital wallet through a cryptocurrency exchange is one of its main draws.
A series of negative headline-making events, including high-profile exchange and lender bankruptcies, sharp price swings, and the prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried a former crypto celebrity who was found guilty in November of stealing billions of dollars from customers on his FTX exchange, which collapsed in late 2022 have severely damaged the reputation of the $2 trillion cryptocurrency market, of which Bitcoin is a bellwether.
According to Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of cryptocurrency lender Nexo Capital, in a statement on Tuesday, “To fully appreciate this new record, we need to acknowledge the cascade of events that shook the crypto market to its core in 2022 and 2023 and marvel at bitcoin’s ability to perpetually bounce back from adversity.”
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin which makes up over half of all cryptocurrencies in use has increased by more than 200% in the last 12 months.
According to Trenchev, the timing of bitcoin’s new high is significant because the asset often reaches a new high following the halving. But the rise was amplified by the ETF spike.
About the author
Anjali Kochhar covers cryptocurrency stories in India as well as globally. Having been in the field of media and journalism for over three years now, she has developed a sharp news sense and works hard to present information that goes beyond the obvious. She is an avid reader and loves writing on a wide range of subjects.
