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Bitcoin (BTC) price rose above $60,000 for the first time since November 2021 on Wednesday, rising more than 12% over the last 24 hours and 43% in the month to hit a multi-year high at $64,005 on Feb. 28.
The last time Bitcoin traded above $64,000 was more than 27 months ago on Nov. 15, 2021, when the price dropped from a high of $66,552 before setting a swing low of around $15,000 during the extended bear market in 2022.
BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView
The current rally has seen BTC's trading volume jump 140% in the last 24 hours to $96.6 billion. Bitcoin's market capitalization has increased to $1.245 billion, cementing its first position as the most valuable cryptocurrency, according to the CoinMarketCap ranking.
The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ether, is also on the rise, climbing 8.55 over the last 48 hours to an intra-day high at $3,597 on Feb. 29. ETH broke through the $3,000 level last week for the first time in almost two years.
Continued demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs, optimism that a spot Ether product may enter the market in May, and anticipation of Bitcoin's next block reward halving — expected in April — are all backing Bitcoin's uptrend.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs are continuing to suck in capital inflows. The nine new Bitcoin ETFs that began trading on Jan. 11 have so far tallied net inflows of roughly $7.4 billion, according to data from Farside Investors.
Bitcoin ETF flow table. Source: Farside Investors
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF, which trades under the ticker IBIT, put up around $3.3 billion of that amount. Fidelity's ETF, which trades under FBTC, came in at around $1.4 billion. Grayscale's ETF, under ticker GBTC, saw a volume of $1.8 billion.
On Wednesday, the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs set a new daily volume record when they registered a combined $6.28 billion in buying and selling activity. That performance bested the previous record set on Jan. 11, the day the new products officially launched.
BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, ticker symbol IBIT, recorded its best day of capital inflows on Tuesday after taking in $612 million, as shown by data from Farside Investors.
By comparison, the largest gold ETFs — State Street Global Advisors' SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and BlackRock's iShares gold Trust (IAU) — have endured net outflows of about $2.7 billion and $350 million, respectively, since that date, according to ETF.com data.
"The launch of Bitcoin ETFs has catalyzed a remarkable transformation in the market dynamics of cryptocurrency. By providing a regulated, accessible path for investment, these ETFs attract fresh capital, drive up demand, and potentially stabilize Bitcoin's historically volatile price," said Andy Wood, a crypto expert at Crypto Tax Degens.
Halving remains the core bullish factor for BTC price, steering the entire crypto landscape as various players anticipate its impact on Bitcoin's price trajectory in the coming months.
The Bitcoin supply halving is an event where the reward for mining new blocks is cut in half. After the next halving, which is expected to occur on April 24, the BTC rewards issued to miners per block will be reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
Crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital shared a chart showing the "Phases of The Bitcoin Halving" in a Feb. 28 post on X, saying that the current uptick in Bitcoin represents the final "Pre-Halving Rally" warning that "the time for deeper pullbacks has ended."
Phases of Bitcoin Halving. Source: Rekt Capital/X
As Bitcoin's halving draws near, investors are rushing to place their best positions for the event.
The latest surge in BTC price led to crypto short positions amounting to $435 million being liquidated over the last 24 hours against $364 million long liquidations, according to data from Coinglass. A total of $395 million in short positions were liquidated on Feb. 28 alone.
Approximately $205 million of Bitcoin shorts were liquidated in the 24 hours against $102 million long positions.
Total crypto liquidations heatmap. Source: CoinMarketCap
The largest single liquidation order happened on OKX for the BTC/USDT SWAP, which was valued at $9.35 million.
Investors expect the fresh round of Bitcoin's bullish price action to continue as inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs increase and the supply halving event draws near.
Can Bitcoin reach all-time highs?
At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $62,603, just 9.7% below the all-time high of $69,000 reached on Nov. 10, 2021. From here, the buyers will now try and push the price toward the $65,000 psychological level to $65,000 and above the all-time high of $70,000.
The moving averages and the relative strength index supported the positive narrative for Bitcoin with their upward trajectory. The position of the RSI in the overbought region and the price strength at 87 validated the buyers' dominance in the market. This means that Bitcoin may continue its "up only" price action in the short term.
BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView
On the downside, sellers may decide to take profits on the latest rally to $54,000, triggering a correction. In such a case, Bitcoin may drop to $60,000 and later to $55,000. Such a retrace would result in 12% losses.
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