Bitcoin returns to $60,000 after 27 months, becoming the most watched asset in the world again
New highs are in sight, halving is imminent, and only the American people have not "unlocked" yet.Author: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily
After a long 27 months, Bitcoin has returned to $60,000, reaching a new high since December 2021. Bitcoin has hit new highs against a series of fiat currencies including the Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, and South Korean Won, and it can be said that only the US dollar holders are still waiting to "break even."
According to OKX market data, BTC briefly surpassed 60,000 USDT, with a price of 60,500 USDT at the time of this article's publication, a 24-hour increase of 6.4%, breaking the previous high of 59,048 USDT in December 2021, and only a short distance away from the all-time high of 69,000 USDT in November 2021. ETH has also surpassed 3,300 USDT, currently priced at 3,345 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 2.4%.
However, apart from BTC, altcoins are showing weak momentum, with a noticeable divergence in the market, as BTC's total market cap dominance reached a high of 51.85%. The main gainers today are from the Meme sector and the inscription sector, with PEPE rising 50%, FLOKI up 22%, ORDI up 14.5%, and sats up 11.5%.
Affected by the overall market uptrend, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies has also surged. CoinGecko data shows that the total crypto market cap has surpassed $2.34 trillion, with a 24-hour increase of 2.7%. Alternative data indicates that the trading enthusiasm among crypto users has also significantly increased, with today's Fear and Greed Index reaching 82, up from 79 yesterday and only 55 last month, indicating "extreme greed."
In terms of derivatives trading, Coinglass data shows that in the past 24 hours, the total liquidation across the network reached $300 million, with $167 million in short liquidations and $133 million in long liquidations; BTC liquidations amounted to $104 million, and ETH liquidations totaled $48.15 million.
American Users Are Still Buying
Bitcoin Spot ETF Continues to See Inflows
According to Farside Investors data, since its launch on January 11, the Bitcoin spot ETF has seen a cumulative net inflow of over $6.7 billion, including:
IBIT with a cumulative net inflow of $6.441 billion;
FBTC with a cumulative net inflow of $4.476 billion;
GBTC with a cumulative net outflow of $759.1 million.
Dune data shows that as of the time of writing, the total BTC holdings of the 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs (including GBTC) have reached 746,571 BTC, with the corresponding total assets under management growing to $44.25 billion. Fidelity has noted in its investment portfolio recommendations on its official website that users should consider adding 1%-3% of Bitcoin to their asset allocation, with the inflow trend still ongoing and showing no signs of slowing down.
On the other hand, trading activity has exploded, highlighting investor enthusiasm. According to a report from CoinShares, the average daily trading volume of Bitcoin ETPs has surged from $34 million in 2023 to $2 billion in 2024.
MicroStrategy's Unrealized Gain of $5.5 Billion
On February 26, Tree News reported that from February 15 to February 25, 2024, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries purchased approximately 3,000 Bitcoins for about $155.4 million in cash. It was also on this day that BTC ended its sideways movement and began to rise, increasing from 51,731 USDT to 54,471 USDT, a single-day increase of 7.77%.
On February 13, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor stated in an interview with CNBC that the demand for Bitcoin spot ETF purchases far exceeds the supply from mining companies, and they will be buying more Bitcoin.
TD Cowen analysts noted in a report that MicroStrategy's Bitcoin transactions "will prove to create value for shareholders over time. MicroStrategy represents a new type of company that generates dollar-based cash flow through enterprise software and cloud services, and then converts its excess cash flow into Bitcoin on an effective leverage basis. Initially a defensive strategy to protect the value of reserve assets, it has now become an opportunistic strategy aimed at accelerating shareholder value creation."
As of the time of writing, MicroStrategy holds a total of 193,000 BTC, with an average purchase price of 31,544 USDT per coin. At a price of $60,000, this results in an unrealized gain of approximately $5.5 billion.
Some Mining Companies Continue to Increase Holdings
On February 28, Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms purchased 31,500 Antminer machines for $97.4 million. This purchase will increase the company's Rockdale mining site's self-mining hash rate from 12.4 EH/s to 15.1 EH/s by the end of July.
Riot revealed last December that it had spent $290.5 million to purchase 66,000 mining machines and indicated that it might choose to buy another 265,000 MicroBT mining machines under the same conditions, which will help increase its hash rate to over 100 EH/s in the long run.
According to CryptoQuant analysis, large entities continue to accumulate, while Bitcoin mining companies' selling activities remain sluggish, with the average daily Bitcoin sold in recent weeks being less than 100 BTC, in stark contrast to the levels of 1,000 BTC or more from November to December 2022.
Michael Saylor has pointed out that after the halving, mining companies' selling capacity will decrease from $12 billion to $6 billion, which will help Bitcoin's price increase. Riot Platforms' ongoing plan to increase mining machines demonstrates its long-term optimistic outlook on Bitcoin prices.
$69,000 Is No Longer Distant
In addition to the continuous buying power from Bitcoin spot ETFs, the development of various chain ecosystems will also inject momentum into the rise. In the past two months, the number of Bitcoin ecosystem projects and TVL has exploded, with the Merlin Chain mainnet TVL exceeding $2 billion, Bitcoin staking L1 project BounceBit's TVL surpassing $500 million, and the representative BRC-20 token ORDI briefly reaching 83.1 USDT, nearing its previous high. The Ethereum ecosystem also has many anticipated events, with Ethereum set to undergo the Cancun upgrade on March 13, and Starknet kicking off the first airdrop of 2024, while the Restaking track is expected to land this year, bringing a new growth path for Ethereum.
On April 21, Bitcoin will undergo its halving, and $69,000 is no longer distant. Americans are also about to break even, and perhaps a new bull market is just beginning.
