Bitcoin surges above $37,000 to hit 18-month high

The world’s biggest crypto currency has now added more than 32 per cent over the past month and 120 per cent since the beginning of January

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) soared above $37,000 Thursday morning to its highest level in 18 months, a rally fuelled by more optimism that regulators could soon approve the first spot bitcoin ETF.

As of 12 p.m. ET it had slid below $37,000 but was still around 3 per cent higher over the past 24 hours.

The world’s biggest crypto currency has now added more than 32 per cent over the past month and 120 per cent since the beginning of January.

There is no question that the very positive action in bitcoin this year continues to be very impressive, Matt Maley, chief market strategist with Miller Tabak + Co., stated in a Thursday morning note.

It is still far from an all-time high, nevertheless. Bitcoin peaked at $68,789 in November 2021 but then crashed in 2022 as the US Fed started hiking interest rates and a number of companies imploded, including crypto exchange FTX in November 2022.

A widespread clampdown on the crypto industry followed. Regulators sued several big companies, including Coinbase and Binance, and last week a jury convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of defrauding customers, lenders, and investors.

Now investors are newly hopeful that the industry is poised for more mainstream acceptance. They are hoping the SEC will soon grant approval for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, which would let investors get exposure to the crypto currency without having to own it.

BlackRock is among the big-name money managers that have recently applied to launch such a product.

Grayscale Investments wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to sign off on the conversion of its bitcoin trust into a spot bitcoin ETF after an August decision in its favour from a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

The panel concluded the SEC had been “arbitrary and capricious” when it rejected Grayscale’s conversion application in 2022.

Grayscale has since picked up discussions with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s divisions of markets and trading and division of corporate finance, as per a person familiar with the matter.

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