WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) -The total value invested in bitcoin surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday for the first time since November 2021 as inflows to U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds continued to support cryptocurrency prices.
Bitcoin’s price reached as high as $52,079 on Wednesday, its latest 25-month high. It was last up 4.29% at $51,690, taking the token’s market cap to $1.013 trillion according to price platform Coingecko.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency has risen around 22% since the start of February, already set for its biggest monthly rise since October.
Strong inflows to new U.S. listed ETFs have driven some of the price action in recent weeks, say analysts, and capital flows into the 11 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs increased to $1.64 billion in the week to Wednesday, LSEG Lipper data showed.
The previous five trading sessions saw inflows of $409 million to the products, which received regulatory approval and began trading in January.
“Whether this pace will be sustained remains to be seen but in crypto, price often drives flow,” said analysts at crypto liquidity provider B2C2.
“One has to imagine that if there are more days like the last few, large inflows will be met by further price rises for spot (bitcoin).”
Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global Capital on Wednesday received permission from a U.S. court to sell about $1.6 billion in shares in Grayscale Investments’ spot bitcoin ETF as part of its effort to repay creditors.
The all-time high for bitcoin’s market cap was $1.28 trillion hit in November 2021, according to Coingecko.
Investments in bitcoin make up more than half of the $2.01 trillion parked in the overall cryptocurrency market which includes ether and other digital coins.
CRYPTO-LINKED STOCKS JUMP
Shares of U.S.-listed cryptocurrency companies also gained on Wednesday, with exchange Coinbase climbing 13.5%, while miners Riot Platforms and CleanSpark gained 12.2% and 11.3%, respectively.
Bitcoin had hit an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021, before struggling for much of 2022 and the first part of 2023, weighed down by monetary tightening by global central banks and a slew of high profile failures at crypto companies, including leading exchange FTX.
But in the last few months, hopes of a soft landing for the economy and the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs have helped sentiment. The ETFs have been touted as a game-changer for the industry, already known for its appeal to retail traders, since the products enable investors to gain exposure to bitcoin without directly holding the asset.
Second-largest token ether, which underpins the ethereum network, was last up 4.9% at $2,762, its highest since May 2022.
(Reporting by Alun John in London, Hannah Lang in Washington and Medha Singh and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, William Maclean)
