Bitcoin price jumps 9.5% to $64,000; what's fuelling the rally?

Bitcoin (BTC) rally continued on Thursday, with the crypto surging 9.5% in the past 24 hours to cross the key $63,000 level. The price of most-valued cryptocurrency surged to $64,000, registering its highest rally since November 2021, and biggest single-day gain since October 2023.

Experts have attributed "passive demand" to the surge in Bitcoin price in the wake of the popularity of ETFs. Highly ambitious estimates forecast Bitcoin to double by the end of the calendar year 2024.

Notably, Bitcoin, which is quite volatile in nature, also plunged 7% after touching $64,000 high on Wednesday. Currently, the crypto is trading at $62,902.12.

In a remarkable comeback, Bitcoin had soared past the $50,000 mark on February 14, 2024, and touched the $57,000 level for the first time since November 2021 on February 27. The last time Bitcoin achieved this level was in December 2021, which was followed by a dramatic downturn to a low of $16000 by the 2022-end, precipitated by a series of adverse events.

"Bitcoin surge is attributed to the ten spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US registering a new daily record by surpassing the $7.7 billion trading volume as retail investors jump on crypto rally. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF traded $3.3 billion on Wednesday, twice as much as its previous volume record," says Edul Patel, CEO, of Bengaluru-based crypto platform Mudrex.

Bitcoin prices have appreciated by 21.19% in the past week and 46.58% in the past month. The crypto surged over 41% on a year-to-date. In the past six months, the crypto saw an upside of 141.72% and 165.94% in the past year.

Sumit Gupta, co-founder, CoinDCX, says while Bitcoin continues to be the undisputed leader, anticipation surrounding the potential approval of an Ethereum ETF is fostering excitement for altcoins. "This anticipation fuels optimism for increased market participation and the potential for broader gains across the entire crypto ecosystem."

Parth Chaturvedi, investments lead of blockchain investment firm CoinSwitch Ventures, says after two long years of price correction, Crypto Spring has arrived early in 2024.

"The spot ETFs have brought in a wave of institutional capital into the asset class and we are seeing strong inflows daily. Blackrock's IBIT did over $2.5 billion in trading volume yesterday, putting it in the US's top 10 most traded ETFs. This is unique for a newly launched asset's ETF that has only been trading for 2 months. Blackrock now has around $9 billion in BTC holding and Fidelity has around $6 billion, which are phenomenal numbers for a newly launched ETF.”

Chaturvedi says with daily BTC generation set to fall from 900 to 450, there has been a demand for over 9000 BTC over the last two days by the new ETFs.

The second most-traded crypto, Ether, is trading at $3,450.08, up 1.87%, its all-time high in the past more than one year. Ethereum touched its lifetime high of $4,644.12 on November 12, 2021, though the crypto plunged to $1,060 a year later on July 1, 2022. Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, has outperformed Bitcoin on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, with a 37% rally as compared to a 27% gain in the flagship digital currency.