For the first time this year, Bitcoin has broken the $44,000 threshold on the Binance exchange. This marks the highest price for BTC since early April 2022, erasing the losses caused by the Luna/UST crashes in May and FTX in November of the same year.
Since the end of October 2023, Bitcoin began to grow thanks to the momentum coming from news on ETFs, and now, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has rallied more than 48% in just 1.5 months, marking extremely strong growth.
During this period, many Bitcoin whales have also returned with large-volume purchases like MicroStrategy and BitMEX. The investment portfolios of these organizations have created significant returns after a struggling 2022.
With optimism prevailing in the market, numerous predictions suggest that this is just the beginning of an upward trend for Bitcoin, considering significant events lined up for 2024. Firstly, January is a deadline for the SEC to approve Bitcoin spot ETFs proposals. Organizations like BlackRock and Grayscale have been consistently meeting with the SEC to address issues in their applications, thereby increasing their chances of approval.
Moreover, in April 2024, Bitcoin will undergo its fourth halving in history, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Halving helps to create disinflationary pressure on the digital currency, as well as encourage miners to take advantage of the remaining time to mine before the revenue is roughly cut in half. The Bitcoin network marked its sixth consecutive difficulty rise on Nov 25, indicating a surge in mining activity.
Bitcoin’s latest surge has also added strength to the overall crypto market recovery. At the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) has reached a new peak for 2023 at $2,309. Other top altcoins have experienced increases ranging from 2-10%, showing that the attention of large-cap cryptocurrencies still belongs to BTC. However, some small-cap altcoins have seen double-digit increases.