- Bitcoin, the world’s most severe regulatory penalties behind and with the hope that U.S. regulators will soon approve crypto funds in the stock market, has reached its highest price in almost 20 months.
- Ethereum, the second most actively traded cryptocurrency, also rose by 8.3% on Monday, reaching $2,260.
- Investors are also hopeful that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for Bitcoin in the coming weeks.
With the increasing expectation of recent ETF approvals, the price of Bitcoin reached $42,000.
Bitcoin Price Surpasses $42,000
Bitcoin, with the hope that the most severe regulatory penalties for the industry are behind and that U.S. regulators will soon approve crypto funds in the stock market, has reached its highest price in almost 20 months. The cryptocurrency, an asset that has increased by more than one-fifth in value in the last month alone, surpassed $42,000, rising by 8.2% on Monday compared to the previous day.
Traders are turning to riskier assets in a period when speculation about the Federal Reserve’s preparedness to cut interest rates next year is increasing, despite the central bank’s insistence that it is still early speculation.
Traders stated that the momentum towards digital tokens was also triggered by the increased interest of larger institutions after the closure of the highest-profile two criminal cases that the market has been dealing with for over a year.
Last month, the U.S. successfully prosecuted Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, and the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud, and Binance pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and financial sanction violations, paying a fine of $4.3 billion.
Despite the fears of many traders, U.S. authorities did not shut down Binance. Henri Arslanian, co-founder of Nine Blocks Management, said, “There was a message that many institutional investors needed two things to look at the space again: closure on FTX and clarity on Binance.”
Ethereum, the second most actively traded cryptocurrency, also rose by 8.3% on Monday, reaching $2,260, taking it to its highest level since May of last year.
Investors are awaiting ETF approval soon
Investors are also hopeful that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for Bitcoin in the coming weeks. So far, the SEC has rejected spot Bitcoin ETFs for ten years, refusing to approve exchange-traded funds directly investing in crypto assets.
Major investors on Wall Street, including BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, along with companies such as VanEck and WisdomTree, have applied to the SEC. The market has long believed that a Bitcoin spot ETF is a way to take control away from scandal-filled crypto groups and launch digital assets into the market in favor of mainstream companies like BlackRock.
Simon Peters, a market analyst at eToro, said, “ETF speculation will continue to invest in the story of the transformative effect on the ecosystem of opening the market to institutional investors.”
Despite the fact that the SEC has been exerting pressure on cryptocurrencies for over a year – including sanctions against groups listed in the U.S., such as the Coinbase stock exchange – the pressure is now under the regulator to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF. This year, a federal appeals court ruled that a crypto asset manager like Grayscale was wrong to reject the conversion application of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.
