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price Bitcoin It approached $68,400 on Wednesday, reaching its highest level since July and sparking a rally in the cryptocurrency sector.
Bitcoin has risen more than 9% over the past week and ether High by about 7%. Other popular coins have also risen, with Solana rising nearly 10% in the past seven days and Dogecoin rising 15%.
The gains have made their way into cryptocurrency-related stocks. Digital asset exchange Coinbase It rose 7% on Wednesday, bringing the three-day rise to 19%. The stock is at its highest levels since August.
Bitcoin miners Digital Marathon and Riot pads It also rose on Wednesday.
Bitcoin and Coinbase rose last week.
One of the reasons why Bitcoin is up 53% so far this year is because there are a host of new spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds that hit the market in January, welcoming a host of new investors. Ethereum ETFs followed in July.
Investors bought $1.2 billion in ETF shares in the past three days, bringing total holdings to more than $63 billion. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accounted for more than 30% of the new purchases.
Samara Cohen, Chief Investment Officer, ETF & Index Investing Black RockHe recently told CNBC that 80% of IBIT buyers are direct investors. Of these, 75% had never owned a BlackRock ETF, she said.
“We went on this journey with the expectation that we needed to educate ETF investors about cryptocurrencies and bitcoin specifically,” Cohen said. “As it turns out, we have done a lot of education for cryptocurrency investors about the benefits of an ETP wrapper.”
