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Bitcoin soared past $37,000 per coin—the first time since crypto megaproject Terra blew up 18 months ago and sent the entire market into freefall.
The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap was at the time of writing trading for $37,278, according to CoinGecko. That's a 5% jump in just 24 hours. The asset is also up over 35% in the past 30 days.
Bitcoin was last at this level 18 months ago. It then crashed following the implosion of Terra—once one of the most important projects in the space.
A number of high-profile crypto firms and projects then went bankrupt, including popular exchange FTX.
At the start of the year, Bitcoin was trading for under $17,000 per coin. It's now up over 124%. But it is still well below its November 2021 all-time high of $69,044 per coin.
The reason for the price surge could be down to optimism around the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
A number of big Wall Street firms have applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to release their own investment vehicle which, if approved, would give investors exposure to the biggest cryptocurrency via shares that track its price.
Momentum for a Bitcoin ETF gathered earlier this year when BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, filed its own application. A recent report from JP Morgan analysts predicted that it was "most likely" a spot Bitcoin ETF could be approved by the SEC as soon as January 2024.
That could make it the SEC's first approval after after 10 years of rejecting Bitcoin ETF applications.
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas said yesterday that a window to approve all 12 Bitcoin ETFs opened today.
New Research note from me today. We still believe 90% chance by Jan 10 for spot #Bitcoin ETF approvals. But if it comes earlier we are entering a window where a wave of approval orders for all the current applicants *COULD* occur pic.twitter.com/u6dBva1ytD
Other major coins and tokens were also up today. Solana, which has been on a roll as of late, jumped by over 10%, hitting a price of $47.68.
And Chainlink, the 12th biggest digital asset by market cap, also jumped significantly—by more than 11%. It was trading for $15.51 at the time of writing.
The entire crypto market cap was up 3.5% today, touching $1.44 trillion.
