Bitcoin, Ethereum Soar Double Digits as Crypto Markets Add $100 Billion

It's all eyes on Bitcoin (BTC) as the industry’s largest cryptocurrency is up 12.6% over the day, trading above the $34,000 mark.

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap surged above $35,000 late on Monday before backtracking to $34,540 at the time of writing, data from CoinGecko shows.

This is the highest value for Bitcoin since May last year, with the move resulting in a total of over $310 million in liquidated short positions in the past 24 hours, per CoinGlass.

Interestingly, the BTC Fear and Greed Index—a popular metric that measures the overall sentiment towards Bitcoin—spiked to 66, meaning that it is now in the “Greed” territory.

Ethereum (ETH) has also enjoyed a significant upswing, reaching its highest point since August.

At press time, the second-largest cryptocurrency is trading hands at $1,830, up 10% over the day.

The total market capitalization of all digital assets has meanwhile swelled more than $100 billion over the span, soaring 9.3% above the $1.3 trillion mark—the peak value since April, according to CoinGecko.

More than a half of that now accounts for Bitcoin, as several important events unfolded on Monday, sparking a new wave of optimism about the potential launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF.

Bitcoin ETF on the horizon?

Several ETF applications have taken the spotlight of late.

First is Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which gives holders exposure to Bitcoin via shares. Those shares, however, have traded at a hefty discount of late as holders aren't able to redeem the underlying. Grayscale aims to fix that by filing to convert the Trust into a full-blown Bitcoin ETF.

The filing was first rejected by the SEC, but earlier this month a court ruled against the SEC's rejection, and yesterday the Commission was ordered to review the filing once more.

Another key driver of this recent surge in Bitcoin's value is the appearance of BlackRocks’s iShares Bitcoin Trust on a list of Nasdaq-traded ETFs, which is maintained by the world’s leading financial clearinghouse, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

Just last week. BlackRock filed an amended prospectus for its spot Bitcoin ETF application, which included detailed explanations on the proposed product’s pricing and reporting mechanism, and the news of the DTCC listing its ticker before the actual trading commenced certainly fuels speculation of the imminent launch.

“Rumors are flying since the appearance of BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF ticker on a list at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), including that the world’s largest asset manager has already started purchasing Bitcoin for the fund," Stefan Rust, CEO of independent inflation data aggregator Truflation said in an emailed statement. "It could be we are seeing the early signs of the long-awaited 'Crypto Spring.' There is a sense that this U.S. ETF is actually real now—after years and years of waiting."

Edited by Liam Kelly.