Bitcoin ETFs impact on market as price and supply rise
The price of Bitcoin is on the way back up after a rough start to the month—with less than two weeks until the anticipated halving.
Bitcoin is bouncing back from a lull to start April, climbing back up above $69,000 on Thursday as the network’s anticipated halving event is set to take place in a couple weeks.
The price of Bitcoin has jumped by 5% over the last 24 hours to a current price of $69,139, reversing a three-day trend that saw the leading cryptocurrency (by market cap) drop beneath the $70,000 level and nearly touch $65,000 on Tuesday before rising on Thursday.
The Bitcoin halving is the quadrennial network event that cuts the amount of BTC that miners receive as a reward for successfully producing a new block. It’s meant to slow the growth of the circulating supply and curb inflation, and is typically tied to a rising price for the asset.
In anticipation of the next halving, which is currently expected to take place on April 20, the price of Bitcoin spiked in March to a new all-time high price of $73,737, jumping several times during the month as it gradually pushed higher and higher. Bitcoin’s long-standing previous all-time high was set in November 2021 around the $69,000 mark.
Bitcoin ETFs have helped push BTC to unprecedented heights this year, but analysts differ on how these investment vehicles may determine where Bitcoin goes next. A Bitcoin ETF is a product that trades like a stock on a traditional exchange and enables retail investors to gain exposure to BTC without buying and storing the asset directly. The launch of Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. market, denied for over a decade by the SEC, has led to tens of billions of dollars entering the crypto market since Janu...
The estimated date for the halving has bounced around in recent weeks, as the event is pegged to a certain network block, and Bitcoin activity and demand helps determine how quickly the network gets to that point. Currently, it’s expected on April 20 or 4/20, a notable meme number that aligns well with the current price—itself featuring another major meme number.
Bitcoin’s latest rise has unsurprisingly sparked similar action across the market, which is broadly up 4% on the day per data from CoinGecko. Ethereum (ETH) is up nearly 4% to $3,415 today, while Dogecoin (DOGE) has popped 6% to $0.186 and Binance Coin (BNB) is the biggest gainer in the top 10 coins with an 8% jump to $597.
Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah revealed details Thursday about the highly anticipated mint of his Bitcoin Ordinals project, noting that the collection will drop on April 11, the legendary rapper wrote on Twitter. According to the tweet, the Ghostface Killah and Rare Scrilla collaborative drop will be free to mint aside from Bitcoin network inscription fees on the OrdinalsBot platform, and collectors will be limited to one inscription per wallet. Representatives for Ghostface Killah did not imme...
Two of the biggest gainers in the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap are also tied to Bitcoin. ORDI, a BRC-20 token minted via the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol, is up nearly 15% on the day to a current price above $64, while Bitcoin Cash—forked from Bitcoin—is up about 12% to $644 following its own halving event this week.
The price of Bitcoin Cash went on a rollercoaster ride as its recent block reward halving took place yesterday, dropping as low as $565 ahead of the halving before recovering.
Bitcoin Cash is currently priced at around $676, up 11.3% on the day and almost 20% on the week, per data from CoinGecko.
At the time of the halving, which took place at block 840000, at 22:45 UTC on March 4th, the price of Bitcoin Cash was $574.90. Around half an hour ahead of the halving, it had dipped to a low of $565, from a high of $607 earlier that day, and a weekly high of $696 set on April 1st.
A modified version of Bitcoin forked from the main Bitcoin blockchain in 2017, Bitcoin Cash includes many of the same features as Bitcoin. That includes a block reward halving that takes place approximately every four years, or 210,000 blocks. In the 2024 halving, its second since the hard fork from the Bitcoin blockchain, the reward for Bitcoin Cash miners was slashed from 6.25 BCH to 3.125 BCH.
Ahead of the Bitcoin Cash halving, the price of BCH surged to its highest level since November 2021, when it peaked at $718.62. The cryptocurrency's all-time high, set in December 2017, was $3,785.82.
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Proposed by a group of Bitcoin developers, Bitcoin Cash aims to offer lower fees and transaction times than Bitcoin by allowing for a greater number of transactions in a single block.
Like Bitcoin, it uses the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, and has a supply capped at 21 million coins. In 2018, Bitcoin Cash was forked, with Bitcoin Cash ABC (later rebranded as eCash) and Bitcoin Cash SV (short for Satoshi Vision) spinning off from its blockchain.
Bitcoin itself is set to undergo its own block reward halving later this month, with analysts divided on whether it will act as a bullish driver for the cryptocurrency's price. While some have projected six-figure prices post-halving, crypto exchange Coinbase has urged caution, noting that "past performance is not an indicator for future success or performance."
