Istafa Ali
Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, started the New Year off with a bang on Tuesday, rising above $45,000 for the first time since April 2022. This was due to optimism that exchange-traded spot bitcoin funds might be approved.
Bitcoin gained 156% last year and hit a 21-month high of $45,532. This was its best year since 2020. Even though it was up 3.5% to $45,727 a short time ago, it is still a long way from its record high of $69,000 in November 2021.
Ether, a cryptocurrency linked to the Ethereum blockchain, rose 2.6% to $2,414 on Tuesday. It had already gone up 91% in 2023.
Cryptocurrency stocks, which closely follow the price of bitcoin, went through huge losses in the last few trading days of 2022. However, they soared in US premarket trading. Along with CleanSpark, Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital all saw their stock prices rise by 11.3% to 14.8%.
The US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase went up 6.3%, and the software company MicroStrategy, which invests in bitcoin, went up 9.4%.
Investors’ main worry has been when the US securities regulator will approve a spot bitcoin ETF. If they do, it will bring in billions of dollars in investments and let millions more people join the market.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has turned down many requests to create spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in recent years, saying they were worried about market manipulation.
But in the past few months, there have been more signs that the government is ready to accept at least some of the 13 planned spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). A choice is likely to be made in the beginning of January.
