Bitcoin is climbing for a fourth consecutive week, with the digital token’s price lingering just below an 18-month high of $38,000, as more investors bet that US exchange-traded funds that hold the largest cryptocurrency are on the verge of winning regulatory approval.
“We are referring to the current Bitcoin rallies internally as, ‘nothing for sale’ rallies, said Stephane Ouellette, co-founder and chief executive of FRNT Financial. “On even the slightest positive news, whether ETF related or otherwise, Bitcoin is seeing very little resistance to the upside and is having the propensity to ‘gap.’ The dynamic speaks to the impressively strong price base Bitcoin has developed post-FTX.”
Bitcoin rose as much as 2.5% to $37,465 on Friday. It climbed within a hair of $38,000 on Thursday, the highest price since May 2022. That was when the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin set off a chain of failures across the sector that culminated in the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange a year ago from tomorrow.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF by Jan. 10, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. Bitcoin has surged almost 40% over the past four weeks on growing speculation that approval was imminent.
And it’s not just Bitcoin rallying, battered coins like Terra are up 66% today, and FTX’s native token, FTT, has surged 79.8%, according to data from CoinGecko.
Cryptocurrencies also appear to be benefitting from an evolving economic outlook. With stocks rising and bond yields falling, the appetite for riskier assets such as crypto is seen rising.
Bitcoin is still only about halfway toward reclaiming the heights of the 2021 crypto mania, when it peaked at close to $69,000.
However, Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, said while short-term forecasts in crypto are difficult to predict, the digital asset’s long-term prospects appear nothing but positive.
“If you look over the next year, it’s hard not to be really bullish on crypto and on Bitcoin,” Hougan said. “We’ll see new all-time highs.”
--With assistance from Olga Kharif.