Bitcoin’s rise above $35,000 drove shares of several cryptocurrency-related companies higher, with investor optimism growing amid the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Bitcoin mining stocks led gains on Tuesday morning, with Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Platforms up 18% and 15% respectively.Shares of Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, rose 15% to about $89, while Bitcoin holder MicroStrategy shares rose 13% to $427 after trading opened on Tuesday.
Two of the three major stock indexes closed lower on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.6%, or 191 points, and the S&P 500 down 0.2%.At the same time, Nasdaq, which is dominated by technology stocks, up 0.3%.
Cryptocurrency-related stocks are surging after a downturn in 2022, pushing some of them to the brink of collapse. After closing at $328 during its 2021 IPO, Coinbase’s stock price fell to $35 in 2022 as cryptocurrency prices fell across the board.
Tuesday’s rally came as Bitcoin topped the $35,000 mark for the first time since 2022 before retracing gains to around $34,400. The gains represent a jump from Monday’s performance, when the cryptocurrency breached the psychologically important $30,000 level. According to data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin now accounts for more than half of the entire cryptocurrency market due to heavy inflows over the past few days.
On Monday, the Court of Appeal Officially announced Grayscale prevailed in a lawsuit against the SEC over the agency’s decision to reject the asset manager’s bid to create a spot Bitcoin ETF in 2022. The agency has not formally approved Grayscale’s application.
Other TradFi heavyweights such as BlackRock and Fidelity have also filed to create a spot Bitcoin ETF, which would give investors more direct exposure to the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
On Monday, BlackRock took a step forward in preparing to offer investment products: Register for stock quotes—IBTC — Launches iShares Bitcoin Trust in partnership with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which provides clearing and settlement services to financial markets. An amendment to the ETF application filed by BlackRock last week also revealed that seed investors could fund the investment vehicle as early as this month, although the move does not necessarily correlate with when the spot Bitcoin ETF would begin trading.
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