Bitcoin prices were holding firm to their perch comfortably above $30K on Friday, as financial services giant Fidelity Investments refiled an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF. Other major cryptos were largely in the green, with SOL, the token of the Solana smart contracts platform, recently soaring more than 14%.
What’s striking to observe is how the digital asset industry continues to rebound from negative news, CJ Reim, co-founder and managing partner at venture capital firm Amity Ventures and a contributor to Core DAO, wrote in an email to journalists. Despite regulatory uncertainty in the US and notable failures like FTX, we are witnessing global competition for the nascent industry heating up, as well as increasing institutional demand as evidenced by BlackRock’s recent Bitcoin ETF application.
Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows that Bitcoin last active more than two years ago is at an all-time high, despite enduring a frigid bear market that took the price from a high near $70,000 in 2021 to about $16,000 at the start of 2023.
Endorsement from large institutions is fantastic, and we do all hope that BlackRock’s ETF goes through – not least because rejection would be very, very bad for Bitcoin, Akash Mahendra, director at Haven1 Foundation and portfolio manager at digital wealth platform Yield App, wrote in an email to journalists. However, at its core, blockchain is really a place for innovation beyond what is available in the traditional finance sector.
Despite having a reputation for volatility, one Bitcoin metric in particular has moved consistently higher, highlighting Bitcoin investors’ confidence in the asset, not to mention their propensity to sit on their BTC holdings.
As Asia markets opened Friday (HKT), Bitcoin was trading sideways, largely unmoved by news a few hours earlier that financial services giant Fidelity Investments was refiling an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF or unexpectedly strong US economic data.