Some crypto bulls are now eyeing $100,000 as bitcoin’s next level, after the leading cryptocurrency briefly topped $70,000 on Friday for the first time in its history.
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Mark Connors, director of research at digital asset manager 3iQ Corp, said he believes Bitcoin BTCUSD will likely hit $100,000 before its next halving event – which is expected to take place around then. April 20 – as exchange-traded funds investing in the token attract institutional flows.
Read: 5 Ways Bitcoin ETFs Are Already Changing How Cryptos Are Traded
It’s the first time in the history of bitcoin that the crypto hit a one-year high before halving, Connors said on a call with MarketWatch on Friday. This excludes the first bitcoin halving in 2012, when cryptocurrency trading was in its infancy, he noted. To date, Bitcoin has had three halving events.
Halving is a mechanism written into the Bitcoin blockchain algorithm to control the supply of coins, capped at 21 million. By halving, the reward for mining bitcoin is cut in half, meaning miners will receive 50% fewer tokens to verify transactions. Halvings are expected to occur every 210,000 blocks mined – or approximately every four years – until the maximum supply of Bitcoin is released.
Bitcoin rebounded before halving this year “because we’re now facing a demand shock, where everything before was about a supply shock,” Connors said.
The investor base for Bitcoin has expanded since then Bitcoin ETFs have started trading on Jan. 11, Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at Amberdata, said on a call.
Meanwhile, BlackRock this week filed amendments with the Securities and Exchange Commission to add bitcoin to both its Strategic Revenue Opportunities Fund (BSIIX) and its Global Allocation Fund (MALOX).
“These BlackRock filings help strengthen the case for bitcoin in a portfolio due to the potential benefits of diversification and enhanced returns,” said Charles Yu, vice president of research at Galaxy Digital.
“There will likely be a much larger impact on BTC demand due to second-order effects of the approval of Bitcoin ETFs, as a wide range of other investment vehicles would be likely to add Bitcoin to their portfolios (e.g., mutual funds, mutual funds, and private funds). funds, etc.) through various investment objectives and strategies,” Yu wrote in a Friday note.
As bitcoin rallied, ether ETHUSD also rose, trading near $4,000 on Friday, according to CoinDesk data. The second-largest crypto by market cap is still down more than 17% from its all-time high of $4,865.57, reached in November 2021.
Investors are waiting for May 23, a critical deadline by which the SEC must decide whether to approve spot ether ETFs.
Still, even if an ether ETF were to be approved, “the impact on the market could be minimal compared to bitcoin,” noted Thomas Tang, vice president of investments at cryptocurrency venture capital firm Ryze Labs .
Six ether futures ETFs generated a total trading volume of $2 million on the first day of trading, while the ProShares BITO Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the first ETF investing in Bitcoin futures, saw volume of transactions of more than a billion dollars during its debut, Tang. note.
