If Bitcoin were a U.S. large-cap stock, it would be a top-10 holding in the S&P 500 index.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization crossed $1 trillion on Wednesday for the first time since November 2021, as U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs continued to support prices with strong inflows.
According to etf.com’s fund flows tool, weekly inflows for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) were nearly $700 million, placing the new spot ETF behind only two behemoths—the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VOO)—for the highest inflows of the week.
The strong inflows for spot bitcoin ETFs came as bullish sentiment around the largest cryptocurrency in market value increased significantly. BTC’s price, which was languishing below $45,000 a week ago, neared $52,000 at one point in Wednesday trading, a more than 18% gain over the seven days, according to crypto data aggregator CoinGecko. As of midday Wednesday (EST), IBIT was trading nearly 5% above its Tuesday closing price and is up more than 20% over the past month.
Tracking the All Time High BTC Price: Is $100k Next?
Bitcoin reached its all-time high of roughly $69,000 in November 2021, shortly after the introduction of the futures-based bitcoin ETF, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO). A number of analysts have said that the start of spot bitcoin ETFs from the likes of asset management giants BlackRock and Fidelity would send bitcoin to new heights with crypto market analytics provider CryptoQuant predicting Sunday that the asset could surpass $100,000 in 2024.
On Wednesday, crypto publication Coindesk noted that bullish sentiment around the continued growth of bitcoin has crypto traders targeting the $64,000 level, and possibly rising as high as $75,000, in the coming months as demand from spot bitcoin ETFs grows.
Crypto Investors Eye April Bitcoin ‘Halving’
Meanwhile, crypto investors are hotly anticipating April’s bitcoin halving, which could spur further price gains.
For investors new to crypto, halvings—events that occur every four years and are part of the Bitcoin protocol—control the supply of new bitcoin distributed into the market. By halving (cutting in half) the rate at which new bitcoins are created, the total supply of bitcoins approaches its ultimate limit of 21 million, creating scarcity that is fundamental to its potential value. The April halving will reduce the bitcoin reward for validating transactions on the BTC network from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoin.
