ETF interest rate hike and upcoming halving drive Bitcoin rally

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Bitcoin has gained nearly 20% in the last week driven by increasing interest around its exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the upcoming halving event. So far in 2024, the cryptocurrency has surged around 40%.

"The positive effects of the ETF launch, institutional investment, which saw a rise in 2023, and the upcoming halving, which is set to affect the demand-supply ratio in favour of Bitcoin's price, have all started adding to the market momentum,"Rajagopal Menon, vice president at WazirX told Business Standard.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin jumped as much as 13% to $63,968 before it cooled down to just over $61,000.

Surge in Bitcoin

Chief Executive officer at Mudrex Edul Patel told the publication that the surge in bitcoin is attributed to the ten spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US registering a new daily record by surpassing the $7.7 billion trading volume.

"This surge is attributed to the ten spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US registering a new daily record by surpassing the $7.7 billion trading volume as retail investors jump on crypto rally," Edul Patel, chief executive officer at Mudrex told Business Standard.

The surge in bitcoin traffic was so much on Wednesday that it triggered trading outages and displays of $0 balances for users of Coinbase, the largest US digital asset exchange. Coinbase later announced that the issue had been resolved.

"Very few customers may still see an inaccurate balance on their account. Our team is working on resolving this display issue for these users," it said in a post on social media platform X.

Speculations on Bitcoin halving has also lead to surge in the prices of the cryptocurrency. Halving is the process by which the number of bitcoins available for trading would be reduced leading to a surge in price. Halving is scheduled to take place in April.

Business Standard quoting some experts mentioned that the optimism may even lead to Bitcoin breaching its all-time high of around $69,000 before halving.

"It may be possible to see a new all-time high in Bitcoin before halving this year," Shivam Thakral, CEO at BuyUcoin told Business Standard.

As per CoinMarketCap the token currently dominates the crypto market with a 53% share in the total value.