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

Bitcoin price surged over 10% to hit a high of $56,740 at one stage on Tuesday morning Asia time, the highest value since November 2021, according to The Block’s Price Page. 

“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.”