Bitcoin Nears New All-Time High After First ETF, Memecoin Surge Slows

Bitcoin prices surged to all-time-high levels on the back of the launch very first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the New York Stock Exchange. The world's most popular cryptocurrency has shot up by 1.27 percent in the past 24 hours to trade at $63,859 (roughly Rs. 48,04,751). In fact, popular US-based exchange Coinbase claims that BTC valuation had risen to $64,476 (roughly Rs. 48,51,174) at one point, almost catching up with the all-time high figure of $64,805 (roughly Rs. 48,75,928). Indian exchanges like CoinSwitch Kuber have the cryptocurrency trading at a price of Rs. 50,17,978 (roughly $66,693), at the time of writing.

While Bitcoin's sprint has the world's attention, other cryptocurrencies are having mini-rallies too. Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals that Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has yet again reversed a 2 percent drop from the previous day. Ether opened Tuesday's trade at Rs. 2,98,898 (roughly $3,972) and is already up by 1.27 percent to Rs. 3,02,749 (roughly $3,972) at the time of publishing.

Others had a mixed day with Cardano slipping up yet again by 2.46 percent. Memecoins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu fell too, with DOGE dropping by 3.25 percent to trade at Rs. 18.26 (roughly $0.24). SHIB tanked the fall better dropping by only 0.65 percent.

Ripple, Uniswap, Litecoin, and Polkadot managed to see green, while Tether valuations fell by a small margin.

As Bitcoin prices soar, cryptocurrency tracker CoinMarketCap reports that the market capitalisation of all the cryptocurrencies put together has crossed a milestone of $2.5 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,87,42,625 crores) — a 233 percent rise from $830 billion (roughly Rs. 62,21,688 crores) mark recorded at the beginning of 2021.

Reports also suggest that the position of Bitcoin plays a vital role in affecting the market position of other altcoins. The value of Bitcoin, as of now, makes up around 45 percent of the total crypto market cap.

While prospects of ETF listings in the US have the crypto-verse excited, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been consistent in its stance against Bitcoin-linked ETFs, claiming that they were subject to market manipulation. This does have a few people at the edge, but asset management firms are definitely not worried.

While the ProShares ETF was the first to debut at the New York Stock Exchange, a host of big asset management firms in VanEck and Valkyrie Investments are also lining up their funds for the next few weeks.