Spread the News

With hopes of renewed demand from exchange-traded funds, bitcoin continued its upward trend and hit its highest price since May of last year.

As of 8:11 a.m. (7:31 p.m. IST) on Tuesday in New York, the greatest digital asset had risen as much as 11.5% to above $35,000 before reversing some of the gain and trading at $34,605. This brings its year-to-date recovery from the 2022 digital asset collapse to 108%.

Speculative enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency is being fueled by the potential approval of the first US spot Bitcoin ETFs in the upcoming weeks. BlackRock and Fidelity Investments are two asset managers competing to provide these kinds of products. Bulls in digital assets claim that the ETFs will increase the cryptocurrency’s ubiquity.

Grayscale Investments LLC has won its battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission to establish a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Monday, according to a US federal appeals court.

Due to concerns about fraud and market manipulation, the SEC has thus far opposed approving exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that make direct investments in Bitcoin. The court decision and a rush of applications from major investors seeking to launch spot funds fueled rumours that the agency might give in.

MicroStrategy, a Bitcoin holder, and trading platform Coinbase Global Inc. see increases of 7.7% and 8.9%, respectively. Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital Holdings, two miners, are each up about 14% so far in the morning session.

According to analyst John Todaro of Needham, “we believe the crypto sector is coming upon an inflection point that will lead, in any of our scenarios, to increasing volatility in crypto-linked stocks,” in a note.