Bitcoin early Monday broke near $68,000, edging closer to its record high from November 2021, powered by an influx of institutional participation and speculation ahead of the upcoming halving event in April. Crypto stocks Coinbase and Marathon Digital rallied premarket Monday while shares of the new spot bitcoin ETFs swung higher.
Bitcoin on Monday surged as high as $67,911, marking more than a 7% gain over the last 24 hours and surpassing its previous high of $64,037 from Feb. 28, according to CoinDesk data. Bitcoin eased back below $67,200 Monday afternoon. The world's top cryptocurrency soared about 60% so far this year, with most of the gains coming after the spot bitcoin ETF launches in early January. Bitcoin is now trading less than 3% below its record high of $68,990 from November 2021.
Ethereum early Monday ran up further against its April 2022 highs to touch $3,609. The No. 2 crypto has rallied 57.4% so far in 2024.
Cryptocurrency Prices Heatmap:
Bitcoin ETF Flows
Shares of the new spot bitcoin ETFs collectively jumped around 7.3% Monday.
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust has been the clear leader in fund inflows since the spot bitcoin ETFs launched Jan. 11 with roughly $7.96 billion in inflows as of end of day March 1, according to BitMEX Research data. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund ranks second at $4.81 billion in inflows. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ranks third at $1.628 billion, followed by the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF with about $1.178 billion in inflows.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has recorded $8.89 billion in outflows as of March 1, a large chunk of the outflows are due to remaining impacts from the crypto winter in 2022.
FTX at the end of January liquidated its GBTC position and sold about $1 billion worth of shares as part of its bankruptcy proceedings, CoinDesk previously reported. Elsewhere, a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Feb. 14 approved bankrupt crypto lender Genesis to sell $1.6 billion in GBTC shares in an effort to repay creditors, Reuters reported.
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"The Grayscale team anticipated GBTC's diverse shareholder base would engage in profit-taking and deploy investment strategies that would impact the Trust's flows, and we are pleased that outflows have continued to stabilize — especially against forced selling from estate bankruptcies," said Jennifer Rosenthal, vice president of communications at Grayscale. "With market-leading liquidity, strong trading volume, and an unparalleled track record, we expect GBTC will continue to be a primary capital markets risk transfer tool for bitcoin."
Still, Grayscale remains the leader in terms of assets, with $26.52 billion in assets under management, followed by iShares Bitcoin Trust at $10.295 billion.
Despite GBTC's outflows, the new ETFs have recorded $7.35 billion in inflows since launch, according to BitMEX Research.
Crypto Stocks
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase spiked 11.4% Monday. COIN stock is extended above a buy zone following a breakout last week. Shares rallied 31.8% in 2024 through Monday's close.
Bitcoin miner Marathon Digitalreversed to slide 4.8% Monday after jumping nearly 7% in early trade. MARA stock rose 9.5% so far this year despite retreating on the company's Q4 earnings report last week. Fellow bitcoin miner CleanSpark dropped 7.8% Monday after bolting 6.3% in the morning. CLSK stock soared 49.3% so far this year.
MicroStrategy rocketed 23.6% Monday, marking six consecutive daily gains. Michal Saylor's software company is the largest publicly-traded holder of bitcoin and added another 3,000 BTC to its coffers last week, Saylor announced on Feb. 26 via a post on X. MicroStrategy now holds 193,000 bitcoin with an average purchase price of $31,544 per coin. MSTR stock bolted 111.2% in 2024.
You can follow Harrison Miller for more stock news and updates on X/Twitter @IBD_Harrison
