Proactive Investors - Bitcoin (BTC) continued pushing higher on Wednesday, successfully closing above $26,000 for the first time this month.
The BTC/USDT pair has been on the march since Tuesday, when Franklin Templeton’s spot-bitcoin exchange-traded fund application sparked renewed interest among investors.
Bitcoin bulls have been anticipating an ETF approval, which could potentially catalyse a massive inflow of traditional finance wealth into the world’s largest cryptocurrency, for some time.
Though the regulators have been roundly dismissive of the concept, more and more Big Finance institutions are heaping pressure on the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Franklin Templeton joins the likes of Grayscale, BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), WisdomTree (NYSE:WT), Cathie Wood and Fidelity in seeking approval.
The spot markets have responded positively to the latest development, with bitcoin adding 5.5% since the start of the week.
At the time of writing, BTC/USDT was swapping for $26,289, having added 1.5% yesterday and another 0.2% in this morning’s Asia trading window.
FTX liquidation commences
There are fears of downward pressure on crypto prices following the US court’s Wednesday approval for bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to sell off its $3.4 billion crypto stash.
FTX’s bankruptcy administrators want to liquidate $560 million in bitcoin, $1.16 billion in Solana (SOL) and $192 million in Ethereum (ETH) in order to partially repay creditors.
Judge Dorsey approved a $200 million per week liquidation pace, which will spread selling pressure over the course of a few months.
SOL token held up well against the liquidation approval, adding 2.7% against the US dollar on Wednesday and a further 1.8% today, bringing the ninth-largets cryptocurrency’s market capitalisation up to $7.69 billion.
Ether, meanwhile, hit the midnight bell 0.9% higher at $1,607 before adding another 0.6% to $1,616 this morning.
Week on week, bitcoin is up 2%, ether is down 1.1% and Solana is down 4.3%.
In the wider altcoin space, Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have fallen in the low single digits week on week, while Tron (TRX) and Toncoin (TON) remain in the green.
Global crypto market cap currently stands at $1.04 trillion, with bitcoin dominance at a flat 50%.