Bitcoin surged Wednesday to above $60,000 for the first time in more than two years, a significant milestone as the world’s largest cryptocurrency stages a massive recovery.
Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin rose as much as 7% to over $61,000 in Wednesday trading.
- It’s the digital asset’s first time above $60,000 since Nov. 17, 2021.
- Bitcoin prices are now up more than 30% since U.S. regulators approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), allowing investors easier direct exposure to bitcoin, far outpacing major stock indexes.
- The recent rally coincides with significant inflows into the bitcoin ETFs.
- Crypto-heavy stocks like exchange Coinbase, bitcoin holder MicroStrategy and bitcoin miner Marathon Digital each rose more than 4% in morning trading, hitting multiyear highs.
Big Number
$1.19 trillion. That was bitcoin’s total market capitalization Wednesday, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin’s gross value was just above $300 billion in Nov. 2022, when crypto prices bottomed out amid industry turmoil.
Key Background
Some $6.7 billion of new capital has flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs in their first six weeks of existence, according to BitMEX Research. More than $1 billion of inflows came Monday and Tuesday, a majority of which went to funds managed by legacy firms BlackRock and Fidelity. The recovery for bitcoin coincides with growing momentum about looser monetary policy and similarly timed stock market gains. Bitcoin remains about 10% shy of its Nov. 2021 record high of over $68,000.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
