Bitcoin has surpassed $61,000 for the first time since November 2021. As of 16:20, it was traded at $61,162, up by 5.9%. Since the beginning of the year, the cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto has gained 34.6%.

The rally is mainly due to the success exceeding expectations of the Bitcoin spot price ETFs traded on the NYSE, Nasdaq, and Cboe (Chicago Board Options Exchange) and launched on January 11th this year after the difficult green light from the SEC.

The Bitcoin spot price ETF launched by BlackRock, named Ibit, yesterday recorded over $1.3 billion in daily trading volume for the second consecutive day. Nearly 42 million shares were traded, according to Nasdaq data, more than double the average since it began trading on January 12th. The record for trading volume registered by all Bitcoin ETFs listed on US exchanges was reached last Monday with volumes of $2.4 billion.

And Now Comes the Halving
In addition to the ETF effect, the halving effect is beginning to be felt. As explained by Adrian Fritz, Head of Research at 21Shares, halving, which means “halving,” is an operation that “occurs at regular intervals (every 4 years) and consists precisely in halving the amount of Bitcoin that miners receive as compensation after adding new blocks to the blockchain. Along with the maximum supply limited to 21 million tokens, this mechanism represents one of the strategies through which Bitcoin maintains its scarcity and, therefore, its market value.”

The event occurring around mid-April will be the fourth halving in history and, Fritz emphasizes, “will result in the compensation received by miners dropping from 6.25 to 3.125 tokens, halving the annualized inflation rate from about 1.70% to about 0.85%, while the asset will continue on its programmed path towards the previously mentioned 21 million units.”