Bitcoin reclaims $70K mark on inflows in spot ETFs

Snapping five days outflows, Bitcoin reclaimed $70,000 level amid inflows in Nasdaq-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Bitcoin is currently up 5.42% to $70,596.42 compared to yesterday's price.

Fidelity's FBTC ETF collected $261.8 million, while BlackRock's IBIT garnered $35.5 million. Other major spot ETFs, excluding Greyscale, saw inflows up to $20 million. This is in contrast to huge outflows worth $887.6 million in BTC ETFs last week. Notably, outflows in spot ETFs are led by Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which has seen massive outflows worth $1.4 billion since March 7, 2024.

Another key trigger behind Bitcoin rise is said to be the London Stock Exchange's announcement regarding the launch of a market for Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange traded notes.

The popularity of spot ETFs in the US has led to a spike in their prices since January 2024, thus recording over 50% rise. Experts are predicting that Bitcoin could rise further given the dollar-pegged stablecoin tether (USTD) and inflows in spot ETFs continue.

Bitcoin has touched several new highs in recent weeks, giving manifold returns to investors, though its volatile nature keeps the investors on tenterhook.

The price of Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, surpassed the $73,000 level for the first time on March 13, 2024, which took its m-cap to an all-time high of $1.44 trillion.

As per the latest price, BTC has risen 29.41% in the last month, while it surged 169.26% in the past six months. In the calendar year 2024, Bitcoin has seen a 59.76% jump. The Bitcoin price had fallen to under $62,000 last week, recording a 15% slide since the record highs of over $73,500 touched the second week of March.

According to Crebaco Global, the Mumbai-based crypto rating and analytics firm, Bitcoin could hit $100,000-$150,000 by the end of 2024, based on the current trends and institutional inflows.

The second largest crypto by market value, Ethereum, is also up 5.25% at $3,627.63 since yesterday. The Ethereum prices touched an all-time high of $4,000 this month as the crypto went Dencun upgrade. The crypto, however, fell short of its record high of $4,600 touched in November 2021.

The approval for 11 spot Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) early this year has led to mainstream adoption of Bitcoin on Wall Street, with major financial institutions such as Blackrock, Vanguard, Valkyrie, Vanek, and Fidelity launching their ETFs. The cumulative inflow of institutional money into Bitcoin through these ETFs has reached a staggering $42 billion since trading began in ETFs on January 11, with a substantial portion of this inflow occurring in the past two months.

Of the 21 million Bitcoins created by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of BTC, 19.64 million bitcoins have been mined to date and the remainder (1.36 million coins) will be mined by 2140.

As per CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin dominates the crypto market with a 53% share of the overall value.

Moreover, since cryptos are not regulated, the counterparty risk is quite high as the collapse of the FTX exchange showed where clients not just lost their cryptos but also their money. However, according to a report by Citigroup, other centralised exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance account for nearly 83% of spot-trading volume. However, in the absence of a regulatory framework, crypto users are still exposed to risks, which is prompting some users to move cryptos to software wallets or offline wallets, which are devices such as Ledger Nano that are easily available on sites such as Amazon retailing anywhere between ₹6,000 and ₹40,000.

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