Bitcoin crossed the $69,000 mark for the first time ever as investors plowed into newly created exchange-traded crypto funds and bet that global interest rates are poised to fall this year.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency reached a high of $69,202 on Tuesday – eclipsing the all-time record of $68,999.99 that was set in November 2021 – before retreating to around $67,071 per bitcoin as of 10:40 a.m. Eastern time.
Bitcoin’s stellar performance also lifted other smaller cryptocurrencies, including ethereum, which rose more than 4% as of 11:40 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday.
Ethereum was trading at more than $3,700 on Tuesday. Since the start of the year, the digital coin was up by more than 135%.
Investor interest has increased since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs in late January.
“There’s only so much supply … but the demand unleashed by the U.S. spot ETFs seems to be relentless,” Justin d’Anethan, head of partnerships in Asia at Keyrock, a digital asset market maker, told Reuters.
Bitcoin’s meteoric nearly 160% ascent since October, of which 44% came in February alone, marks a sharp contrast to 2022, when the market was beaten into an 18-month long crypto winter, plagued by a string of high-profile corporate bankruptcies and scandal.
In addition to demand from a wider pool of investors, bitcoin, and crypto generally, has gotten a boost from the prospect of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, which often prompts investors to divert capital into assets that are higher yielding or more volatile.
![Investor interest has increased since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs in late January.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/2024-new-york-city-wall-77694038_1464d5.jpg?w=1024)
Social media platform Reddit, which on Feb. 22 filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, said it had invested a small portion of its excess cash reserves in bitcoin, ether and matic, the native token of the Polygon network, as a form of payment for sales of certain virtual goods.
With Post wires
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