Bitcoin Hits its six-month high as BITO Starts Trading

On Tuesday, Bitcoin’s price climbed to its six-month high, rising through $63,000 as ETF began trading on the NYSE.

The largest crypto rose 34% over the past month. It was waiting for approval from the SEC – the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It had to approve the exchange-traded fund investing in futures contracts attached to the crypto.

ETF began trading at 9:30 a.m. to open the day’s session on the NYSE. 

First-day trading volume with at least 1.88 million ETF shares (changing hands in the first couple hours), or $770 million worth in $BITO, seemed strong.

In the afternoon, the $BITO share price was trading at $41.37, up 3.5%. It was from the initial net asset value of around $45. During the same period, bitcoin was up 2.4% to $63,198.

Market impact

 In the U.S., the ETF is considered the first of its kind. It offers investors the possibility to obtain exposure to returns of BTC with the comfort of purchasing stock in a brokerage account. On Friday, the ETF received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission, while some other ETF proposals are pending approval from the SEC. They might all receive approval later this week.

Crypto traders are now interested in knowing how much extra upward rate pressure might arise from introducing the new ETF.

On Tuesday, the managing director at MarketGauge, Michele Schneider, said on CoinDeskTV that she wants to wait at least a week to show up with a new stock offering to estimate its success. Schneider said that if we get good liquidity and volatility while developing some interest, that would probably be enough evidence. 

The ProShares ETF is designed to invest in bitcoin futures on the Chicago-based CME instead of directly investing in crypto. Therefore, the ETF won’t offer any new demand for bitcoin by itself.