Bitcoin continued its surge on Wednesday, shooting above $60,000 for the first time since November 2021.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by 6% at $60,688.00, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose as high as $60,734.42. It’s now sitting just below its all-time high of $68,982.20.
With the record in clear sight, the market is even more motivated to see that level retested. Bitcoin has soared more than 18% this week alone, after a week-long pause of this year’s rally. It’s now up more than 40% for 2024.
Antoni Trenchev, cofounder of crypto exchange Nexo, said to expect some resistance as bitcoin nears $69,000 but that breaking through $60,000 should whet the appetite of investors who have sat this year’s rally out – particularly retail investors. According to JPMorgan, their interest in crypto has rebounded this month after a pause in January.
Investors are expecting it to set a new record this year after the launch of ETFs made the asset class more accessible to institutional investors, and with the network’s upcoming halving event, which historically has set the stage for a major rally in the months that follow.
“We’ve always known that we need bitcoin to get to a place where it’s adopted and accepted on a mainstream level and now the doors have been opened up for that to happen,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group. “The economics of bitcoin dictate that it should continue to drive higher.”
Specifically, the halving, an event mandated in the Bitcoin code, reduces the bitcoin mining reward by half in order to limit the supply. The next halving is expected to take place in April, although Ryan Rasmussen, an analyst at Bitwise Asset Management, pointed out that thanks to ETFs, the demand for bitcoin is far outpacing the supply already.
“We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg,” Rasmussen said, referencing the impact of ETFs. “Institutional capital is still getting up to speed with bitcoin ETFs – platform approvals, advisor education, client education – I expect a lot more demand is still under the surface and yet to be seen.”
The move gave a lift to bitcoin-related equities. Crypto exchange Coinbase saw shares rise more than 5%, while bitcoin proxy Microstrategy jumped 8%. Popular miners CleanSpark and Marathon Digital added more than 4% each.