Bitcoin surges above $56,000 to hit record high since November 2021

“A key reason behind this surge can be attributed to Bitcoin spot ETF trading volume which reached a new height of $2.4 billion on Feb. 26, further boosting U.S investors’ confidence in this asset class.” Lucy Hu, a senior analyst of Metalpha, told The Block.

Ether rose 4.7% over the past 24 hours to trade at $3,234 at 10:30 a.m. in Hong Kong, The Block’s data showed. The GMCI 30 Index , measuring the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, was at 122.05, up 6% in 24 hours. 

Justin d’Anethan, head of APAC business development of crypto market maker Keyrock, said that while this is playing on a longer timeframe, “you're seeing the inexorable rise of an asset with a set and hard-coded supply relative to an inflationary fiat currency.”

“There's only so much supply, a supply that is set to halve in a matter of months, but the demand unleashed by the US spot ETFs seems to be relentless,” d’Anethan added.

Nine new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, excluding Grayscale’s converted fund, set a record-high combined daily trading volume of $2.4 billion during Monday trading sessions. Keyrock’s d’Anethan pointed to the possibility of traditional investors wanting to earn short-term profit from MicroStrategy’s acquisition of an additional 3,000 BTC . 

D’Anethan told The Block that he’s seeing a mounting enthusiasm for the bitcoin ecosystem, while the macro markets appear “relatively underperforming.” 

“There's also a clear enthusiasm for ETH, which broke $3,200, this morning in Asia, on the back of the BTC rally but also, I suspect, some anticipation about a spot ETF of its own, later this year.”