Bitcoin ticks above $35,000 as spot ETF hype builds

Bitcoin surged to over $35,000 on Tuesday morning in Asia as anticipation builds around the potential approval of spot bitcoin ETFs.

The world’s larget cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at $34,883 at around 10:30 a.m. Hong Kong time today, up 14.8% over the past 24 hours, after reaching as high as $35,066, according to CoinGecko data. It's the first time bitcoin has topped the $35,000 threshold since May 2022. The move added to bitcoin’s weekly gain of 22.8%

“We have seen a very quick pick up of the bitcoin price in the past few days and this is the direct result of the heightened anticipation of Bitcoin ETFs this year,” Lucy Hu, a senior trader of Metalpha, a Hong Kong-headquartered digital asset wealth management firm, told The Block.

“Another key reason could be the continued escalation of the Middle East conflict, in which institutional investors are allocating bitcoins to their portfolios for risk diversification,” Hu said.

Jack Tan, co-founder and CEO of crypto trading service WOO Network, said that bitcoin may “grind higher” in anticipation of spot bitcoin ETFs and “as a hedge against geopolitical turmoil which necessitates more government spending and money printing.” 

“We are now past the highs of the fake news pump,” Tan added.

Ethereum rose 7.8% over the past 24 hours and gained 13.5% in the week.

BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF

The price movements come after BlackRock's highly anticipated spot bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, made an appearance on a list maintained by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation.

"This is first spot ETF listed on DTCC, none of the others on there (yet)," Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said on X. "Def notable BlackRock is leading charge on these logistics (seeding, ticker, dtcc) that tend to happen just prior to launch. Hard not to view this as them getting signal that approval is certain/imminent."