Bitcoin early Tuesday rallied to a new all-time high to surpass its previous record levels from November 2021. Cryptocurrency prices and spot bitcoin ETFs followed bitcoin higher. Elsewhere, MicroStrategy announced plans to raise its bitcoin bet.
Bitcoin Tuesday morning leapt as high as $69,208 —surpassing its November 2021 all-time high of $68,990. BTC slid back to $67,000 but was still up about 2% over the prior 24 hours, CoinDesk data showed. The world's top cryptocurrency is now up 62% so far this year, powered by an influx of institutional participation and speculation ahead of the upcoming halving event in April.
Ethereum early Tuesday traded near $3,812, shy of its morning high of $3,826 and at January 2022 highs. The No. 2 crypto has rallied 66% so far in 2024.
Cryptocurrency Prices Heatmap:
Bitcoin ETF Flows
Shares of the new spot bitcoin ETFs eased slightly early Tuesday after collectively jumping around 7.3% Monday.
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust has been the clear leader in fund inflows since the spot bitcoin ETFs launched Jan. 11 with roughly $8.38 billion in inflows as of end of day March 4, according to BitMEX Research data. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund ranks second at $5.22 billion in inflows. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ranks third at $1.67 billion, followed by the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF with about $1.27 billion in inflows.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has recorded $9.27 billion in outflows as of March 4, a large chunk of the outflows are due to remaining impacts from the crypto winter in 2022.
FTX at the end of January liquidated its GBTC position and sold about $1 billion worth of shares as part of its bankruptcy proceedings, CoinDesk previously reported. Elsewhere, a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Feb. 14 approved bankrupt crypto lender Genesis to sell $1.6 billion in GBTC shares in an effort to repay creditors, Reuters reported.
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"The Grayscale team anticipated GBTC's diverse shareholder base would engage in profit-taking and deploy investment strategies that would impact the Trust's flows, and we are pleased that outflows have continued to stabilize — especially against forced selling from estate bankruptcies," said Jennifer Rosenthal, vice president of communications at Grayscale. "With market-leading liquidity, strong trading volume, and an unparalleled track record, we expect GBTC will continue to be a primary capital markets risk transfer tool for bitcoin."
Still, Grayscale remains the leader in terms of assets, with $28.12 billion in assets under management, followed by iShares Bitcoin Trust at $11.53 billion.
Despite GBTC's outflows, the new ETFs have recorded $7.92 billion in inflows since launch, according to BitMEX Research.
MicroStrategy To Buy More Bitcoin
MicroStrategy late Monday announced plans to raise $600 million in a private offering in order to buy additional bitcoin, and for general corporate purposes, according to the release. Michal Saylor's software company is the largest publicly-traded holder of bitcoin and added another 3,000 BTC to its coffers during the week ended Feb. 25, Saylor announced on Feb. 26 via a post on X. MicroStrategy now holds 193,000 bitcoin with an average purchase price of $31,544 per coin.
MSTR fell nearly 10% early Tuesday. Shares on Monday rocketed 23.6% to mark six consecutive daily gains. MSTR stock bolted 111.2% in 2024.
Crypto Stocks
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was little changed in early trade Tuesday after spiking 11.4% Monday. COIN stock is extended above a buy zone following a breakout last week and trading at its highest level since January 2022. Shares rallied 31.8% in 2024 through Monday's close.
Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital fell 7.5% early Tuesday, after Monday's 4.8% decline. MARA stock rose 9.5% so far this year despite retreating on the company's Q4 earnings report last week. Fellow bitcoin miner CleanSpark tumbled 7.8% Tuesday morning and dropped 7.8% Monday. CLSK stock soared 49.3% so far this year.
You can follow Harrison Miller for more stock news and updates on X/Twitter @IBD_Harrison
