The price of bitcoin surpassed the $50,000 mark on Monday for the first time since December 2021 as spot bitcoin ETFs continued to take in massive amounts of money. As a group, the ETFs recently passed $10 billion in assets under management, excluding Grayscale’s GBTC, which was converted from an existing trust. Including GBTC, the group has experienced $2.8 billion in net inflows since going live on Jan. 11.
Bitcoin first swept past the $50K mark at about 12:20 p.m. EST on Monday, according to CoinGecko, but its price recently settled just below that mark at $49,973, rising 3.6% over the last 24 hours and 17.1% over the last seven days. Its market cap stands at $981 billion.
Crypto exchange Bitfinex attributed bitcoin’s recent gains to the increase in total crypto asset inflows and a slowdown in the selling of Grayscale’s GBTC fund. Last week’s daily outflows from GBTC averaged under $100 million, compared to a high of over $600 million in late January, according to Bitfinex’s report.
“The diminishing selling pressure from GBTC is a key factor underpinning the robust performance of BTC prices this week,” Bitfinex wrote.
