Bitcoin Reaches $68K, Approaching the $1.38T Market Cap of Silver

• On Monday, Bitcoin surpassed $68,000, approaching its November 2021 high of $69,000.
• It is approaching silver’s market capitalization of roughly $1.4 trillion at an accelerated rate.
• For the first time since January 2022, Ether surpassed $3,600 due to robust institutional demand. Prior to market close, the BlackRock-offered bitcoin ETF experienced another active trading day with volume exceeding $2 billion.
• Bitcoin (BTC) continued to surpass $1,000 milestones, surpassing $67,000 and approaching not only its own record high of $69,000 but also silver’s market capitalization of nearly $1.4 trillion.

Amid early Asian trading hours on Tuesday, the largest and oldest crypto asset surged from a week-long sideways consolidation that had been limited below $64,000 to attain a value of $68,800. It gained 8.5% in the previous twenty-four hours, which was comparable to the 8% increase of the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20).

Bitcoin is swiftly becoming one of the largest global assets, having surpassed the $1.3 trillion market capitalization threshold at present due to its meteoric rise this year. It is now approaching the $1.4 trillion market capitalization of silver, according to data compiled by CompaniesMarketCap, after earlier in this bull run it surpassed that of Meta Platforms (META), the parent company of Facebook.

As a result of Monday’s price action, bitcoin shorts, which are positions that wager on lower prices, were forced to liquidate approximately $120 million in leveraged bets, the majority of which were shorts, according to CoinGlass data.

On Monday, Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, surpassed $3,600 for the first time since 2022. However, its 4.6% gain was less than that of Bitcoin and the CD20.

Dog-themed cryptocurrencies Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have gained 30% and 100%, respectively, over the past twenty-four hours and are currently the most successful tokens in the CD20.

The Bitcoin ETF frenzy persists

The U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs experienced another day of robust trading activity due to the price increase.

According to Barchart data, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) surpassed $2.1 billion in trading volume with some time remaining before the session close, marking its third-best day since last Wednesday and Thursday. Throughout the day, IBIT surpassed the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), the leading and largest gold ETF listed in the United States, in terms of trading volume, despite having a fifth-larger size in terms of assets under management (AUM).

Asset manager CoinShares reported on Monday that bitcoin-focused exchange-traded products attracted “massive inflows” of $1.73 billion last week, their second-largest week on record. Funds specializing in ETH were also in high demand, with net inflows of $85 million, according to the report.

This week’s all-time peak for Bitcoin?

In a market report published on Monday, Markus Thielen, the founder of 10xResearch, predicted that bitcoin’s price action would “astonish” this week, with new all-time highs being suspected due to the expansion of demand beyond the U.S. and the continued strength of ETF inflows.
Bitcoin is also outperforming the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index (NDX), according to a report published on Sunday by Caleb Franzen, proprietor of Cubic Analytics. He referred to the breakout of bitcoin against the NDX above a crucial level connecting the highs of the first and fourth quarters of 2021 as being “extremely encouraging.”

Bitcoin continues its rapid resurgence and approaches its all-time high while on a vertical rampage.

On Monday, the digital token increased 8% to $67,310, a significant increase from its initial price of $44,000 at the beginning of the year and less than $2,000 from its all-time peak of approximately $69,000 set in November 2021.

What fuels the euphoria? Bitcoin, according to cryptocurrency observers, is increasing in value in part due to increased demand for so-called spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. According to experts, ETFs, which enable investors to experiment with cryptocurrencies in a safer manner than ever before, have attracted a tremendous inflow of capital this year.

Bloomberg MoneyWatch quoted Joel Kruger, a market strategist at digital currency exchange LMAX Group, as saying, “Investors are becoming aware that bitcoin can be treated as an uncorrelated asset, which makes it extremely attractive for portfolio diversification.”

A spot bitcoin ETF enables non-holders to acquire direct exposure to bitcoin. A spot bitcoin ETF invests in bitcoins, as opposed to bitcoin futures contracts, which are the underlying asset of standard bitcoin ETFs. Every spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is administered by a company that distributes shares of its personal bitcoin reserves acquired from other ETF holders or an authorized cryptocurrency exchange. The shares are publicly traded on an established stock exchange.

Bitcoin continues its rapid resurgence and approaches its all-time high while on a vertical rampage.