- Bitcoin hit a new record high on Wednesday as it surged above $73,000.
- The cryptocurrency has seen a surge in demand sparked by the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs.
- BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF saw a record $849 million in flows on Tuesday.
Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high on Wednesday as demand from spot bitcoin ETFs continues to hit new records.
The price of bitcoin jumped as high as 2.2% in Wednesday morning trades to hit $73,679.
A bulk of the demand for bitcoin has been driven by spot bitcoin ETFs, which were launched in January after gaining approval from the SEC.
On Tuesday, a record $1.1 billion flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs, excluding flows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Driving the charge in the spot bitcoin ETFs is BlackRock, which attracted a record $849 million in inflows on Tuesday, according to data from JPMorgan.
There is now $31.1 billion held in the various spot bitcoin ETFs excluding Grayscale’s, and nearly $59 billion when you do include Grayscale’s bitcoin ETF.
Because Grayscale already had more than $20 billion in assets when it converted its over-the-counter trust into an ETF, it is often excluded from bitcoin ETF flow calculations.
After Grayscale and BlackRock, the next biggest spot bitcoin ETF is Fidelity’s FBTC, which has so far attracted $9.1 billion in assets under management, followed by the Ark / 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF, which had $2.8 billion in assets as of March 12.
Competition for investors’ bitcoin allocation has been fierce, with ETF issuers offering fee waivers for a specific period of time following the ETF launch.
And so far, BlackRock is winning. The firm’s bitcoin ETF now owns 215,625 bitcoin, which is now bigger than MicroStrategy’s 205,000 bitcoin stash.
With just 6,300 new bitcoin being mined each week, the demand from the ETFs has been overwhelming as new supply can’t keep up, leading to higher prices.
And that supply is going to dwindle even more next month when the bitcoin halving event occurs. After the halving event, just 3,150 new bitcoin will be minted each week.
