SEC approval of spot BTC ETFs was Bitcoin IPO, says expert

• Bitcoin price tagged $64,000 on Wednesday amid a buying frenzy and depleted OTC supplies.
• ETF specialist attributes the surge to ETFs, which brought BTC to Wall Street.
• The ETF craze has seen trading volumes beat their previous peaks.

Bitcoin (BTC) price exploded to an intraday high of $64,000 on Wednesday before a quick retraction. Reports circulated that over-the-counter (OTC) BTC supplies depleted, which could compel institutions to switch to public exchanges as an alternative source of Bitcoin.

Also Read: Bitcoin price rally likely not over as institutions deplete BTC OTC supply

ETF approval brought Bitcoin to Wall Street

Eric Balchunas, an exchange-traded funds (ETF) specialist with Bloomberg Intelligence, says that the approval of ETFs on January 10 acted as the Initial Public Offering (IPO) for Bitcoin.

For the layperson, an IPO is when a private company’s shares are made available to the public for the first time, effectively allowing a company to raise equity capital from public investors. 

Balchunas’ report comes after ETF products broke their own record, surpassing their previous daily peak in trading volume to hit $2.6 billion on Wednesday. Notably, this record happened only halfway through the trading day. 

Four BTC ETFs merit inclusion in the top 20 ETF list, and BlackRock’s IBIT takes fourth place overall. With such an explosive turnout before the end of business, Balchunas speculated there could be “more [trading volume] today than in its first two weeks combined.”

With the landmark approval of BTC ETFs on January 10, BTC came to Wall Street. It was easily accessible to institutions over-the-counter (OTC) for the first time. The capital inflows from these players catapulted Bitcoin price to scrape $64,000 on Wednesday. A trader and analyst on X, @DaanCrypto, wrote, “Must be one of the craziest runs I've seen on Bitcoin throughout my last [seven] years in Crypto.”

To put it in perspective, Bitcoin price managed to breach four thresholds in a single day, moving past $60,000 to $64,000.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin price is trading for $60,650 after filling the orders of longs when it dipped into the supply zone between $62,905 and $68,212. The level to beat is the midline of this order block at $65,654, beyond which the continuation of the intermediate trend would be confirmed.

BTC/USDT 1-day chart

According to Balchunas, the overflows from the spot BTC ETF market are now spilling into the BTC futures ETF and stock markets.