Bitcoin surged 5% on Friday to one-month highs, fueled by what analysts described as a flurry of buying ahead of April’s halving event and as recent outflows from exchange-traded funds slowed.
The price reached a session high of $47,705, the highest since January, after the first spot bitcoin exchange traded products listed in the United States were approved by regulators.
BTC, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was last up 3.5% at $46,946, and is expected to rise by 10% this week, the most in a week since October. Ether was up 2.5% to $2,486.
It reached a two-year high just above $49,000 in January, but has since fallen, weighed down by a “sell the news” wave of profit-taking following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of ETFs.
Bitcoin’s drop went against the grain of other financial markets in recent weeks, with stocks, bonds, and gold all rallying on the expectation that global central banks will cut interest rates this spring.
Policymakers have since pushed back against this, and economic data does not support the notion that rates should fall anytime soon, but risk assets such as stocks have risen, with bitcoin resuming its upward trend.
Analysts said Friday’s price increase was due to a slowing in recent ETF outflows and a burst of buying ahead of the April halving.
“With bitcoin back up to $46,000 this morning, traders are clearly gearing up for the hotly anticipated halving event due in roughly two months,” Scope Markets’ chief markets analyst Joshua Mahony said.
The next halving is scheduled for April, as part of a process to slow the release of bitcoin, whose supply is limited to 21 million – 19 million of which have already been mined – by halving the reward for producing the tokens.
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