Bitcoin tops US$57 000 for first time since 2021

BITCOIN’S price has increased 33 percent since the turn of the year, extending a prolonged rally that has also stoked speculative appetite for smaller tokens like Ether and BNB.

Bitcoin retook the US$57 000 level for the first time since late 2021, supported by investor demand through exchange-traded funds as well as further purchases by MicroStrategy.

The digital asset added as much as 4,4 percent to reach US$57 039 before paring some of the jump to trade at US$56 473 as of yesterday in Singapore.

Bitcoin’s price has increased 33 percent since the turn of the year, extending a prolonged rally that has also stoked speculative appetite for smaller tokens like Ether and BNB.

A net US$5,6 billion has poured into a batch of landmark Bitcoin ETFs that began trading in the US on January 11, signaling a widening of demand for the token beyond committed digital-asset enthusiasts.

An upcoming reduction in the token’s supply growth, the halving, is adding to the optimistic sentiment.

MicroStrategy, an enterprise software firm that buys Bitcoin as part of its corporate strategy, said Monday that it had purchased another 3 000 or so tokens this month. The company now owns about US$10 billion in Bitcoin.

“We do not expect a major pullback from Bitcoin given its breakout and positive intermediate-term momentum,” Katie Stockton, founder of Fairlead Strategies, wrote in a note.

The combined value of digital assets now stands at roughly US$2,2 trillion, according to CoinGecko, compared with a low of about US$820 billion during the bear market of 2022 when FTX and other crypto platforms collapsed.