On Feb. 14, Bitcoin achieved a market capitalization, or market cap, of $1 trillion for the first time since Dec. 2021.

Market capitalization is the value of all the Bitcoin that’s been mined and is an indicator of the economic size and significance of the cryptocurrency. At the time of this writing, the price of one Bitcoin is about $51,800—a rise of $8,000 in the past week.

The rise follows the long-awaited debut of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in Jan. 2024. Immediately after the funds opened trading in US markets, a “sell the news” movement helped depress Bitcoin prices. However, since then, the cryptocurrency has climbed steadily as retail and institutional investors have moved their Bitcoin exposure to funds with low management fees.

Demand for Bitcoin spot ETFs continues to grow, with $500 million net inflows for Blackrock’s ETF on Feb. 13.

The inflows reflect a heated market with high demand for Bitcoin and crypto in general.

“Bitcoin is worth over $1 trillion again. Remember all the experts who told you ‘Bitcoin is a Ponzi’ and ‘Crypto is dead’ and ‘It’s just a slow database?’ They were wrong. You can believe them again if you want. Or you can plug in and see for yourself,” said crypto investor Ryan Adams on X.

Comparing daily Bitcoin spot ETF inflows to the amount of Bitcoin mined each day shows that demand outstrips the increase in supply by a factor of ten or more. “$500m daily ETF inflows, $46m mined daily by miners. This is kindergarten math,” said one investor.

“Wall Street LOVES Bitcoin. They are buying up 12.5x more bitcoin per day than the network can produce. The march to a new all-time high is underway if this continues,” investor Anthony Pompliano posted.

With Bitcoin this high, nearly all of the supply of circulating Bitcoin is in profit, which generally indicates a market top, according to CryptoSlate analyst James Van Straten. With their bags in the green, most people will want to take at least some profit and lock it into stablecoins or fiat, many analysts think.

However, the approach of the halving, which makes mining new Bitcoin harder, combined with the strong retail demand for Bitcoin, may challenge this pattern. “We are deviating from the four-year cycle,” said analyst nestaxbt on X.

With the symbolic value of reaching $1 trillion market cap Bitcoin, future targets could be $64,000 or even $70,000.

“A very positive milestone, propelled by sustained $500 million a day inflows to BTC ETFs. This, plus the impending BTC halving, gives us a number of strong indicators to remain very bullish on BTC. When $2 trillion MC?” consulting firm gm3.io founder Andrew O’Doherty told nft now.

Source: nftnow.com