Bitcoin continued its mid-June surge on Friday, soaring to a one-year high above $31,000.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at $31,143, up more than 3.6%, according to CoinDesk Indices. It is up roughly 20% over the past week.
BTC last changed hands over $31,050 in June 2022. It crossed $31,000 briefly on April 10.
Bitcoin began spurting earlier this week, a few days after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, applied for a spot ETF, and as two other financial services powerhouses, Invesco and WisdomTree, refiled their applications for similar products.
Investors shaken earlier this month by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuits against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase were heartened by the ETF filings that underscored the ongoing commitment of large institutional investors to enlarge their presence in the digital asset space.
“Blackrock’s Bitcoin spot ETF filing has raised expectations of an institutionally driven price rally being on the horizon,” K33 Research wrote in its weekly newsletter on Friday.
Most other major cryptos joined bitcoin’s upswing. Ether, the second largest crypto in market value, was recently up more than 1.6% to change hands at $1,914. Earlier this week, ETH regained the $1,900 threshold for the first time since early June. Litecoin and DOT, the token of smart contracts platform Polkadot, were recently up more than 5%. AVAX, the native crypto of the Avalanche blockchain, rose nearly as much.
In a text message to CoinDesk, Mark Connors, head of research at Canadian digital asset manager 3iQ, struck a cautiously optimistic note about the potential, long-term impact of the ETF applications.
“Sentiment has clearly shifted in the digital space, as markets look through the Binance and SEC complaints, instead, betting the slew of BTC ETF filings drives future demand….sooner than later,” Connors wrote.
Connors wrote that BTC’s “punch through $31K” to a year-long high underscored cryptos’ exit from “2022’s fire swamp that burned many,” but that BlackRock and the other firms’ ETF initiatives would not drive “a sustained bid for BTC.”
“Mounting cross currents that limit near term visibility, not the least is the entrenched battle by the SEC against the digital asset universe of players and protocols,” Connors wrote, reiterating a theory that BlackRock timed its filing on June 8, just two days after the SEC complaint against Coinbase, “to support their partner in a strategic effort.”
BlackRock named Coinbase (COIN) as custodian of assets – primarily bitcoin – in the proposed ETF, called the iShares Bitcoin Trust.
This is a developing story.
UPDATE (June 23, 2023, 17:37 UTC): Adds K33 Research, Connors comments, background on ETF filings, and updates price information, including daily chart.
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