Bitcoin topped $70,000 for a time on Monday.
At one point, it was $3,931 higher than its previous close and 82.3% higher than its 2024 low, which it reached on Jan. 23, Reuters reported Monday (May 20).
The report attributed the rise in part to this year’s approval and launch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have brought in new investors, reignited excitement around the cryptocurrency, and reversed the collapse in prices that was seen during the “crypto winter” of 2022.
Similarly, Cointelegraph pointed to a “noticeable surge” in spot buying and spot bitcoin ETF purchasing when reporting Monday that bitcoin had topped the $70,000 mark.
The price of bitcoin topped an all-time record of $73,000 in March as investors warmed to crypto once more in the wake of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of bitcoin ETFs earlier this year.
It was also reported Monday that venture capital investment in cryptocurrency companies is increasing after nearly two years of cooling.
On May 2, when announcing its latest quarterly earnings results, Block, the owner of Cash App and Square, revealed that it is also a huge owner of bitcoin. At the quarter’s end, the company’s $200 million investment in bitcoin had grown by around 160% and stood at $573 million.
“We believe the world needs an open protocol for money, one that’s not owned or controlled by any single entity,” Block CEO Jack Dorsey said in his shareholder letter. “We believe bitcoin is the best and only candidate to be that protocol, and to ultimately become the native currency of the internet.”
In April, the latest bitcoin “halving” — a preprogrammed event that comes every four years and cuts the amount of available coins to be mined in half — occurred and, as designed, created more scarcity of the popular cryptocurrency.
It was reported at the time that many investors expected big gains in the months to come based on past performances. After the halvings in 2012, 2016 and 2020, bitcoin’s price surged by about 93x, 30x and 8x, respectively, from its halving day price to its cycle peak.
