Bitcoin reached a new all-time high on 11th March, surpassing 71K. In the futures market, nearly 90% of short positions were liquidated in the past four hours, amounting to approximately $55 million.
The introduction of Bitcoin spot ETF in 2024 has brought strong momentum to Bitcoin prices, reaching a historic high of 70K on 8th March. Among the ETFs, BlackRock’s IBIT, which has the highest inflow of funds, has surpassed MicroStrategy’s 193,000 Bitcoins in terms of managed Bitcoin assets. As of 8th March, IBIT held 197,943 Bitcoins.
Apart from that, among the top ten ETFs, only Grayscale GBTC showed continuous net outflows. Currently, it still holds nearly 400,000 Bitcoins. In the past two months, a total of 222,273 Bitcoins have been liquidated. The outflow per day in the past week was about 4-5 thousand Bitcoins, with relatively larger inflows on Mondays.
The good news is that the total Bitcoin holdings of the other nine ETFs (409,241) have surpassed GBTC, which may indicate market interest in Bitcoin. However, achieving these milestones does not guarantee a boost in Bitcoin. The daily inflows of the other nine ETFs still fluctuate, and the difference in net outflows compared to GBTC has a certain impact on the market.
It can be confirmed that the influence of Wall Street giants on the Bitcoin market has increased due to ETFs. Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, also expressed concerns before the approval of ETFs, fearing that a Bitcoin controlled by Wall Street would have a negative impact and lead to more involvement from large companies and governments, thereby reducing Bitcoin’s activity.
GBTC, IBIT, Bitcoin, BlackRock