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Driven by the approval of the US spot Bitcoin ETF, Bitcoin is heading for its longest rally in a year. On Monday, Bitcoin was about 1% to $48,436, on track for the seventh consecutive day, and if this rally continues, it will be the longest streak since January 2023.
On January 11, nine new Bitcoin spot ETFs began trading in the U.S. and have attracted more than $9 billion in investor inflows to date. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart wrote in a note that BlackRock and Fidelity Investments' two ETFs were the most successful** based on the assets acquired a month after listing.
Caroline Bowler, CEO of cryptocurrency platform BTC Markets Pty, said there were signs that "more and more institutional money is flowing into this asset class".
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which has been established for more than a decade, is the token's largest dedicated portfolio and is converted into an ETF on the day of its new** listing. While there has been a steady outflow of funds after the conversion, the rate of outflows of more than $6 billion from this ** has slowed. Together, the 10 ETFs attracted $2.8 billion in net investment.
Last year, the speculation about ETFs fueled Bitcoin's recovery, and on the day it began trading, Bitcoin briefly topped $49,000. But then, investors took profits, and Bitcoin suffered a nearly $10,000 sell-off. Since then, it has risen to $50,000, and the last time it was reached was in 2021.
Optimism about Bitcoin's upcoming quadrennial halving (i.e., halving of the reward for mining new blocks) in April this year is also spreading in the crypto space. In the six months since the first three halves, Bitcoin has seen significant growth.
In addition to ETF inflows, sentiment towards Bitcoin is "generally positive" during the Lunar New Year holiday that Asia is underway, Fundstrat Global Advisors wrote in a note.
However, Bitcoin is still about $20,000 below its record high set in 2021, during a bull market during the pandemic, and the market was very well funded.