From $16,486 to $44,729: A Year of Unprecedented Growth
The Rise of Bitcoin in 2023: ETFs Lead the Charge.
Since October, Bitcoin bulls have been dominating the market, pushing the “digital gold” to a 2023 high at $44,729, according to TradingView charts. Without a doubt, one of the main drivers of the rally has been the hype surrounding Bitcoin Spot ETFs and their impending approval in early January 2024.
Exactly one year ago, on the 29th of December 2022, Bitcoin was trading at $16,486 and as I am writing this, BTC is changing hands at $42,294. Saying that it was a good year for the apex cryptocurrency is an understatement and a big part was played by the ETF rumors. With that being said, let’s take a closer look at the major players on the ETF scene.
It’s no coincidence that the biggest asset manager on the globe, BlackRock is also the main Bitcoin ETF player. The total value of BlackRock’s AUM (assets under management) is $10 trillion. To put it into perspective, this is about half of the entire U.S. Gross Domestic Product!
Ranked by AUM, Fidelity takes the second place, with about $4 trillion, followed by Franklin Templeton Investments with $1.5 trillion.
In the middle layer, we have Van Eck, which is an ETF and Mutual Funds Manager with about $80 billion AUM. It is followed closely by Wisdom Tree, with $72 billion AUM.
Next, we have some companies with lower capital but a lot more experience in the crypto industry: Ark Invest, Galaxy, Bitwise, Valkyrie, and more.
Cathie Wood’s Take
Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest spoke with Yahoo Finance earlier in the week and gave her opinion on the impact of Spot ETFs on the price of Bitcoin. According to her, “All we need is for the trillions of dollars in institutional assets out there to allocate maybe 0.1% or 0.2% to an ETF, which will be one of the easiest ways to gain exposure and one of the most efficient ways to gain exposure to bitcoin.” The CEO added “That will move the price significantly.”
She also noted the tendency of market participants to “sell the news”, explaining that those who have been participating in the recent bullish move will be probably looking to take some profits off the table. This could create a dip in price before possibly moving higher.
Chart Analysis – BTC/USD
The pair has established resistance between $44,400 and $44,700 and we can see a double top forming. On the other hand, the bears failed to break the support at $40,000 on two separate occasions, so all clues indicate that a ranging period is upon us.
The end of this ranging period will be marked by the break of either $40K support or $45K resistance but the New Year is approaching fast and this may have an impact on market liquidity and volatility. The price action could go flat but on the other hand, beware of sudden moves that can be amplified by the low liquidity.
