- Optimistic sentiment, institutional interest, and historical uptrends tied to Bitcoin’s halving event fuel the anticipation of surpassing its $69,000 all-time high in March.
- The soaring trading volumes of Bitcoin ETFs, notably the $IBIT ETF, reflect robust investor interest, with $520 million in single-day inflows, marking the largest intake for a Bitcoin ETF.
Bitcoin bulls continue to charge ahead confidently pushing the Bitcoin price an additional 5% up all the way to $60,000. As of press time, Bitcoin price is trading 6.31% up at $60,438 with a market cap of $1.176 trillion. On the weekly chart, the BTC price shows 17% gains adding nearly $120 billion to its market cap.
According to some traders, optimistic sentiment, institutional purchasing interest, and the historical uptrends related to Bitcoin’s halving event are propelling the asset toward surpassing its all-time high of $69,000 in March.
Bitcoin halving events have historically triggered bullish market rallies, resulting in significant price surges of several hundred percent in the months following these occurrences. Halving events occur approximately every four years, reducing block rewards for miners. The next halving event is anticipated to take place in mid-April.
As the number of new bitcoins available on the market decreases and demand either remains steady or rises, prices typically see an upward trend. Investors anticipate that this reduction in supply will lead to price increases, often accompanied by a pre-halving rally, which can spark a new bull market and rejuvenate bullish sentiment.
Additionally, reported by Crypto News Flash, certain traders predict that Bitcoin will surpass its previous all-time high of $69,000 in March. They attribute this expectation to growing institutional demand and the promising performance of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are likely to further drive prices upward.
Bitcoin ETF Trading Volumes Soar
In a notable update, Eric Balchunas, an ETF strategist at Bloomberg, revealed impressive figures for the $IBIT Bitcoin ETF. Balchunas reported that the ETF garnered an astonishing $520 million in inflows, marking the largest single-day intake for a Bitcoin ETF and the second-highest among all ETFs on that day. Surpassing the $8 billion mark in assets under management (AUM), $IBIT now ranks in the top 5% among all ETFs.
Whoa.. $IBIT took in $520 million all by itself yest, biggest haul for a btc ETF ever and 2nd most of any ETF yesterday, only $IVV took in more cash.. it is now $8b in aum, top 5% among all ETFs. This means a good portion of that massive volume was new buying vs arb/algo. pic.twitter.com/tnq7SaN2di
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 28, 2024
Balchunas suggested that a significant portion of this substantial volume represented new buying activity rather than arbitrage or algorithmic trading, indicating robust investor interest in the ETF.
Bloomberg’s ETF strategist Eric Balchunas observed yet another day of remarkable trading volume for the Nine ETF, surpassing $2 billion. Notably, the BlackRock IBIT ETF set a new personal record with $1.3 billion in trading volume, exceeding the daily trade volume of most large-cap US stocks.
As Crypto News Flash earlier indicated, BlackRock continues to hit fresh milestones every passing day in terms of ETF inflows and trading volumes.
Balchunas raised the question of whether this surge in volume reflects a new normal or a short-term phenomenon driven by algorithmic trading or arbitrage activities.
Another intense volume day for the Nine with well over $2b traded. $IBIT broke its personal record again w/ $1.3b (for context that’s more than most large cap US stocks trade). I don’t know if this is a new normal or some kind of short-term algo/arb-related burst a la $HODL. pic.twitter.com/KkCkdQKe9r
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 27, 2024
Additionally, Balchunas highlighted that BlackRock’s IBIT ETF experienced over 100,000 individual trades, a significant increase from its typical daily trading activity of 30,000 to 60,000 trades leading up to Tuesday. Despite initial speculation that the surge in volume was due to pent-up demand following the Presidents Day weekend, trading activity remained elevated, challenging this theory.
