Bitcoin climbs to a record high of $66,084 after the launch of futures-based ETFs

The largest cryptocurrency jumped 3.1% to $66,084, surpassing its previous peak since April and driving its 2021 growth to over 120%. Second-ranked Ether pushed higher as did the broader Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index.

Bitcoin has climbed to its latest high above expectations of pandemic-era liquidity, speculative bets and widespread adoption by institutional investors. The ride was shaky: the token fell below $30,000 in June amid criticism of energy consumption and China’s cryptocurrency crackdown. This then began to recover partly as the crypto sector adjusted to wider areas of China.

“It’s a valid moment,” said Jesse Proudman, co-founder and CEO of Capricorn, a crypto advisory firm. It’s no longer a question of whether this asset class exists – I think it’s a worthwhile mark to be really broad. History of the digital-asset class.”

The first bitcoin-linked exchange-traded fund listed in the US debuted on Tuesday as the second most traded fund on record in a watershed moment for the crypto industry.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, more than 24 million shares in the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF — trading under the ticker BitO — changed hands on Tuesday.

According to Athanasios Sorophagis at Bloomberg Intelligence, with a turnover of about $1 billion, BITO debuted on the first day of trading only behind BlackRock Carbon Fund, the latter ranking higher due to pre-seed investments.

The biggest proponents of bitcoin support the controversial argument that the virtual currency is a store of wealth and a hedge against the most powerful threat from inflation in many years.

wall Street

Wall Street enthusiasm has also increased: Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are among the firms offering crypto-related services. Don Fitzpatrick, chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management LLC, said his firm owns some coins and that crypto “has gone mainstream.”

At the same time, there is still a long way to go. For example, Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said there is a “feeding frenzy” in crypto among about 10% of financial-services firms, but the vast majority are hesitant about the asset class.

In the past few years, a whole new crypto-economy has formed. Non-fungible tokens or NFTs – which allow holders of digital art and collectibles to track ownership – have hit the headlines.

decentralized finance

So is the decentralized finance – DeFi – ecosystem, which allows people to lend, borrow, trade and take insurance directly from each other, without the use of intermediaries such as banks.

The record for bitcoin comes just in time for its birthday – the digital coin was born on Halloween 2008, coinciding with the publication of a research paper by the name Satoshi Nakamoto.

The paper was titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Its birth ignited a digital currency revolution, which led to the rise of over 12,000 other coins, according to CoinMarketCap.com data. The total market cap of cryptocurrencies is over $2.5 trillion.