Bitcoin sets new peak at 72,200 USD, MicroStrategy buys another 12,000 BTC

Bitcoin's rise above $72,000 has pushed the currency's market capitalization to $1.4 trillion, surpassing Silver to become the world's 8th largest asset.

Not "satisfied" with the milestone of 69,990 USD 2 days ago, the largest cryptocurrency in the market Bitcoin continued its growth momentum, creating a new peak at 72,226 USD on the evening of March 11, 2024.

If in both attempts to surpass the old peak of $69,000 on March 8 and March 5, Bitcoin was corrected, BTC is currently creating a "solid" foundation around the $71,600 - $71,800 area.

With the latest growth, Bitcoin's market capitalization is at $1.4 trillion, "pushing" BTC to become the world's 8th largest asset, surpassing the $1.3 trillion figure of the asset class. The popular product is Silver.

Currently ranked 8th, Bitcoin is only behind technology giants Alphabet (stock code of Google), Amazon, NVIDIA, Apple and Microsoft. The asset with the largest market capitalization globally is still Gold with a size of 14.66 trillion USD.

In the context of Bitcoin continuously peaking in recent days, MicroStrategy's huge BTC investment portfolio, although it has temporarily recorded a profit of more than 7.1 billion USD, the company still continues to buy 12,000 BTC at an average price. at $68,475 between February 26 and March 10, 2024, bringing total holdings from 193,000 BTC to 205,000 BTC (worth $14.6 billion at current prices).

In an interview not long ago, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor stated that there are no plans to sell Bitcoin, and stated that "cryptocurrencies are technically superior to gold, S&P 500 or real estate. ".

Bitcoin's upward momentum, as usual, still comes from Bitcoin spot ETFs. During the weekend trading session on March 8 (US time), these funds recorded an inflow of 223 million USD, bringing the total cumulative net amount of Bitcoin ETF products recorded since the launch date. To date, it is 9.59 billion USD.

Among them, BlackRock's Bitcoin Spot ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), continues to be the "leader" in the ETF race with an inflow of up to 336.3 million USD, much larger than the total cash flow of The remaining 9 ETFs. Not only is the fund holding more than $10 billion in Bitcoin, BlackRock also wants to become a "tycoon" with a plan for the Global Allocation Fund - an investment fund under the group's management - to buy Bitcoin ETF shares.

With a current holding of 198,000 BTC, BlackRock's ETF has "closely chased" MicroStrategy's 205,000 BTC to become the company that owns the most Bitcoin in the world. Following are the two companies Tesla and SpaceX (19,794 BTC) co-owned by billionaire Elon Musk and Bitcoin mining giant Marathon Digital Holdings (16,930 BTC).

The fact that Bitcoin has continuously created new peaks in recent days has also caused the cryptocurrency trading volume in Korea to surpass the stock market.

According to local media Naver, on March 10, 2024 alone, trading volume on South Korea-based crypto exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, Gopax and Coinone, reached a record number 11.8 trillion won (KRW), equivalent to 9 billion USD at the USD-KRW exchange rate, surpassing the total trading volume on the Korean stock market (KOSPI) of 11.4 trillion Won.

Witnessing the growing demand for trading Bitcoin ETF products, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) also quickly announced that it would accept applications for ETN registration (exchange-traded bonds). for two asset types BTC and ETH in the second quarter of 2024. Currently, the exchange is calling on potential issuers to "urgently" register to list crypto ETNs.

The growth of Bitcoin also led the second largest cryptocurrency in the market Ethereum (ETH) to surpass the $4,000 mark, temporarily creating a new peak of 2024 at $4,054 to prepare to welcome the upcoming Dencun upgrade, but Still need one more uptrend to reach the ATH peak of 4,868 USD.

However, in less than 2 months of launch, BlackRock iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) has accumulated more Bitcoin (BTC) than MicroStrategy.

According to statistics as of March 8 by BitMEX Research, BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT is holding 198,000 Bitcoin, approximately 13.5 billion USD in assets under management (AUM). This is a remarkable achievement after nearly 40 trading sessions.

Meanwhile, the famous public company holding the most Bitcoin in the world MicroStrategy currently owns 193,000 BTC. However, MicroStrategy's portfolio may have changed, as the company just issued an additional $700 million in bonds for the purpose of collecting more Bitcoin, as Coin68 reported last week.

Since being approved by the US government to launch on January 11, IBIT has been supplemented with hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin every day, and outperformed spot products listed in the same batch (with the exception of Grayscale's ETF which was transferred changed from GBTC). In addition, BlackRock also plans to buy ETF products issued by itself using the Global Allocation Fund.

Grayscale's GBTC has been "drained" of more than 200,000 Bitcoin since opening spot product business, but still has about 400,000 BTC remaining.

The Bitcoin spot ETF is the springboard that has pushed Bitcoin prices up more than 60% this year. The mainstay currency of the crypto industry has set a new peak at 69,990 USD on March 8, 2024. However, Bitcoin only managed to surpass the old peak a little and then immediately dumped strongly to the area of 66,500 USD, and is currently being traded for 68,373 USD.

At the same time, former President Donald Trump continued to make good statements about Bitcoin, and could see "BTC as a useful form of currency" to support the US Dollar (USD).

Appearing on CBCC station's Squawk Box program on March 11, 2024, when asked about his views on cryptocurrency, former US President Donald Trump said "if re-elected, his administration will will not suppress the use of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies through regulators."

"There's been a lot of people using Bitcoin and I'm not sure if I want to get rid of it at this point...People are crazy about NFT things, and people have paid a lot of Crypto for them ."

When asked about buying Bitcoin, Mr. Trump replied "doesn't own any bitcoin, but will occasionally allow people to use Bitcoin for payment" and could see "it as a useful form of currency." " to support the strength of the US Dollar (USD).

Also on the program, Trump once again emphasized the importance of the US dollar, and did not forget to remind the need for regulations for Bitcoin supervision.

This is the second time on live broadcast in less than a month that the leading Republican candidate in the November 2024 election has once again "turned around" in his stance on Bitcoin.

Back in the past in June 2021, the former US President criticized the largest cryptocurrency in the market in particular and crypto in general as a "disaster" and a "fraud" because "it is a currency". compete with the US dollar.

However, Mr. Trump's recent actions and statements are showing a change in "stance" towards the digital currency space. The former US President has actively participated in the crypto market by promoting his NFT collections, including:

The first NFT collection in the form of tokens was released with a total of 45,000 NFTs at a selling price of 99 USD/NFT.

In April 2023, Mr. Trump released the second NFT collection called "Series 2", with a listing price of 99 USD/NFT on Polygon, with a total of 47,000 NFTs, 2,000 NFTs more than the first set. .

The latest is the limited edition NFT collection "Mugshot Edition" also priced at 99 USD/ NFT, giving the owner the opportunity to own part of the suit he wore in Georgia after being prosecuted in August 2023. .

According to many records and on-chain data, NFT collections have earned Mr. Trump millions of dollars on Ethereum wallets specifically set up to serve the sale of this type of asset. Not only that, the former US President's Ethereum wallet was determined to have received $5 million in "royalty fees" from selling images to the partner issuing NFTs. But Trump said he joined NFT not for money, but because of his passion for art.

Some experts assess that Donald Trump's move to change his stance may be aimed at attracting voters to support Bitcoin for the US Presidential election in November 2024. Currently, Mr. Trump is considered the most potential candidate representing the Republican Party in the race to win the US President's seat.