Bitcoin breaks $49k as spot BTC ETF trading volume surges

Bitcoin made a 24-month high on day one of open trading for spot BTC ETFs less than 24 hours after the SEC issued approval. 

On Jan. 11, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) hit $49,000 for the first time since December 2021 as trading opened for spot BTC ETFs across major U.S. exchanges like the Nasdaq, NYSE, and CBOE. 

BTC’s surge amounted to nearly a 10% increase in price, with Bitcoin’s market cap less than $100 billion away from becoming a $1 trillion asset. When this report was written, BTC’s price had somewhat retraced due to expected market volatility amid euphoria for spot BTC ETF approvals. 

As crypto.news previously reported, crypto’s leading token has a clear path to $55,000 and beyond if the $48,000 range is flipped into support. This could trigger a further run toward the $69,000 all-time high, only 31.1% away at press time.

Following over a decade of resistance against spot Bitcoin ETFs by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulator finally authorized issuers to list their products on Jan. 10.

The SEC named 11 issuers in its approval document, including firms like ARK 21Shares, BlackRock, Bitwise, and VanEck. Trading opened to hundreds of millions in volume, although there was a lack of consensus among market observers regarding the actual value of trading into these BTC ETFs. 

However, Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas said over $500 million was traded across spot BTC ETFs in the first 20 minutes, excluding Grayscale’s GBTC. Other sources placed the figure much higher, with some pointing to north of $2 billion traded already.