Bitcoin price climbs above $64,000 briefly, BTC futures open interest hits all-time high

The price of bitcoin rose above the $64,000 mark at one stage on Monday morning in Asia, swinging around 7% away from the cryptocurrency’s all-time high set in November 2021, according to The Block’s Price Page. 

As of 9:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, traded at around $63,500, rising 3.4% in the last 24 hours. The GMCI 30 Index, measuring the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, was at 137.39, up 2.21% in 24 hours.

In the past 24 hours, the liquidation in bitcoin positions amounted to $59.27 million, with about $38.52 million being shorts, according to Coinglass data. 

The price action came amidst the daily open interest for bitcoin futures on centralized exchanges reached an all-time high of $27.53 billion on Monday morning in Asia, Coinglass data showed. Open interest, a measure of the total value of all outstanding bitcoin futures contracts across exchanges, indicates increased market activity and trader sentiment.

Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen a significant increase in assets under management, with BlackRock’s IBIT reaching $10 billion last week. The cumulative volume for spot bitcoin ETFs amounted to $73.91 billion as of March 1, compared to $29.19 billion on Feb. 1, according to Yahoo Finance data compiled by The Block.

Bitcoin is also nearing its next halving event, which is expected to occur in April. The halving is set to reduce miner rewards by 50%. This may negatively impact miners' profitability and lead to a higher bitcoin production cost, resulting in bitcoin price declines, JPMorgan analysts wrote in a report last week.

The price of ether rose 1.6% to trade at around $3,400 on Monday morning in Asia, according to The Block’s data.