Bitcoin approaches $55k as IBIT tops $1B in trades

Bitcoin surged as much as 6.8% Monday to hit $54,446 — a high not seen since November 2021 — as investment products continue to rake in the cash. Ether was also on the rise, surpassing $3,180 and extending its rally from earlier in the week.

Equities were mixed toward the end of Monday’s session. The S&P 500 lost around 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite was flat, gaining a modest 0.03%.

These price moves come as investors continue to fund bitcoin and ether investment vehicles. Digital asset investment products clocked $598 million in inflows last week, extending a four-week streak of positive inflows, according to data from CoinShares. Bitcoin (BTC) products were the winner, raking in $569.5 million. Ether (ETH) came in second, positing $16.8 million.

Bitcoin investment products’ year-to-date inflows now total $5.6 billion, “although recent price rises have prompted minor inflows into short-bitcoin positions which totalled $3.9 million,” CoinShares head of research James Butterfill said.

Monday also saw the iShares Bitcoin Trust, one of the newly-launched bitcoin spot ETFs that hit the market last month, top $1 billion in value traded. The product now ranks as number 11 out of all ETFs and is in the top 25 across stocks, according to Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

Read more: Bitcoin ETF Tracker

The price moves come as federal disclosures released Monday show Representative Shri Thanedar sold between $365,000 and $800,000 of bitcoin, ether and litecoin on Feb. 5, 2024.

Analysts say optimism about an ether spot ETF, which may be approved as soon as this May, could be fueling the cryptocurrency’s rally. Coinbase last week shared a letter the exchange sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission in support of Grayscale and its bid to convert the Grayscale Ethereum Trust into an ETF.

Coinbase’s team focused on the notion that ethereum is not a security, an assertion that securities regulators have historically made.

“Senior officials of the Commission have publicly said as much on several occasions over the past six years, and neither the Commission nor its staff has disavowed this position, even after the merge,” Coinbase wrote in the letter.

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