Proactive Investors - Bitcoin (BTC) offered back a large chunk of gains in the latter hours of Thursday’s trading session after coming close to breaking above $38,000.
It would have marked the first such instance since May 2022, following an impressive streak for the touchstone cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s spot price has been buoyed by the excitement surrounding the pending approval of spot-bitcoin exchange-traded funds, an achievement that could be a new inflection point for the world’s largest cryptoasset.
However, sell orders placed on the Binance order book suggest that breaching 40k could be a near-term struggle, particularly considering that trading volumes remain relatively low.
ETC Group founder and chief strategy officer Bradley Duke also contended that the bitcoin ETF narrative “has been priced into the market”.
The result was a march lower to $36,700 from Thursday’s intraday highs, which still marked a 3% rally from Wednesday’s closing price.
Bitcoin remains 120% high year to date – Source: tradingview.com
Ethereum skyrockets
News has emerged that BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) has registered an iShares Ethereum Trust (iShares is BlackRock’s ETF wing) in the US, suggesting that the asset management titan intends to file for an ether-based ETF.
BlackRock has also led the charge in pressuring US regulators to approve bitcoin-based ETF products, and the influence it wields is seen as a key factor in swaying the regulators.
BlackRock’s move on ether sent traders into a frenzy, with the second-largest cryptocurrency rallying a walloping 12% on Thursday the ETH/USDT pair to close Thursday at $2,120.
Ether’s rally caused a sharp downturn in bitcoin dominance, which now stands at 52.3%, a 120 basis point week-on-week decline.
In the broader altcoin space, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) remain the strongest among the blue chips, both adding double digits the their market values the past week, while BNB, Ripple (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have added high single digits.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation at the time of writing was at an 18-month high of $1.39 trillion.
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