Bitcoin (BTC) has officially made history as the top crypto rallied to a new all-time high in early trading on Tuesday, doing so 47 days before its next halving, showing that demand for access to BTC is the strongest it has ever been.
Data provided by TradingView shows that BTC flirted with new record highs in late trading on Monday, briefly spiking above the previous record on several exchanges but not officially surpassing the previous ATH mark on an average price basis.
But that changed on Tuesday after bulls rebuffed an early attempt by bears to break the back of support at $65,150, reversing course to power BTC to a new record high of $69,330 shortly after 10 am EST.
BTC/USD Chart by TradingView
The rally for BTC follows a day where the ten listed spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively recorded their second-highest volumes on record, with a total of $5.5 billion transacted on Monday.
“Confirmed: today was second biggest volume day for the Ten at about $5.5b,” Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted on Monday. BlackRock’s “$IBIT alone did $2.4b of it and has crossed $11b in aum. Each of them is up over 30% in 6 days, which will prob help keep flow ball rolling. Getting a bit of ARK Mania deja vu.”
Balchunas followed up on Tuesday, noting, “The ten spot bitcoin ETFs have blown through $50b in assets.. began life 7 weeks ago under $30b. About $8b of it is from flows, the rest from bitcoin value going up.”
“If they keep up this pace and add $10b a month (which is pretty insane but very [possible] if btc price complies), they will pass gold ETFs this summer,” he added. Addressing the new record-high gold price established on Tuesday, Balchunas said, “Gold [is] a big variable, of course, and while it is having nice bounce, the flows aren't there, $GLD has seen outflows every week this year.”
And it's not just demand from the ETFs that is driving the price action. A report from Bitfinex noted that open interest on centralized exchanges for Bitcoin futures saw record highs, suggesting investors remain confident that the current rally has more room to run.
“The recent spike in open interest has surpassed the levels seen in November 2021, when BTC hit its all-time high of nearly $69,000,” Bitfinex analysts said. “On Friday, March 1, the total open interest for Bitcoin futures contracts soared above $26 billion, surpassing the previous record, set in the last quarter of 2021, of $24 billion.”
Ethereum (ETH), the second-ranked crypto by market cap, also continued to see its price surge higher in trading on Tuesday, hitting a high of $3,830 on Coinbase, its highest price since January 5, 2022.
ETH/USD Chart by TradingView
The gains for Ether come as the community prepares to undergo the Dencun upgrade, which is expected to help reduce fees on layer-two networks.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.54 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 52.6%.
