Crypto Complex Yawns At Launch
As the first U.S. bitcoin ETF begins trading, cryptomarkets seem to have baked in much of the enthusiasm already.
As The first U.S.-listed bitcoin-related ETF, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) kicks off its first day of trading, the cryptocurrency market is also in the green. The global cryptocurrency market cap stands at about $2.6 trillion, a 0.4% increase over the last 24 hours.
The price of bitcoin has been steadily climbing over the past week on optimism around the approval of the first ETF. The cryptocurrency is up 8.0% in the past week. While it has yet to surpass its all-time high of $64,863 that was reached in April, its current price of $62,593 means that it needs to rise less than 4% to reach this mark.
Given the coin’s historical volatility, it is possible this could even be reached sometime today on continued enthusiasm around crypto’s growing acceptance within the financial industry.
In the first hour of BITO’s trading, it had gained 0.25%. However, the price of bitcoin had fallen by 0.8% in the same time frame. Given BITO’s reliance on bitcoin futures, it will not directly track the spot price of bitcoin.
Though no Ethereum ETF has yet to be approved, the price of this cryptocurrency has also been rising in tandem over the past week. Ethereum is up 7.3% over the past week, rising nearly as much as bitcoin. Crypto investors could be betting that ETFs based on Ethereum futures, which have been trading on CME since February, could be next.
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