Bitcoin hits two-year high

The leading cryptocurrency surged above the $57,000 mark on Tuesday

The price of Bitcoin, the world’s highest-valued cryptocurrency, hit a two-year high on Tuesday.

The token rose as far as $57,036 in early Asian trading, its highest level since November 2021, having recovered from a tumble below $40,000 in the initial days following the opening of US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in early January. Later in the day, it pulled back slightly to trade at $56,325 as of 08:30 GMT, still up more than 9% over the past 24 hours.

Analysts attribute the latest surge to inflows into ETFs, which posted a record-high $2.4 billion in trading volume on Monday. ETFs allow more retail investors to hold Bitcoin indirectly via funds that trade on exchanges.

“There’s only so much supply… but the demand unleashed by the US spot ETFs seems to be relentless,” Justin d’Anethan from Keyrock, a digital asset market maker, told Reuters.

The rally was also spurred by growing interest in Bitcoin from big market players, experts say. This followed Monday’s disclosure from software company MicroStrategy, a large crypto investor, that it had recently acquired some 3,000 bitcoins for approximately $155 million. Social media platform Reddit also recently said it had invested some of its excess cash reserves in Bitcoin and several smaller tokens.

READ MORE: Wall Street trading heralds the arrival of Bitcoin

The recent rally in Bitcoin took the token’s market capitalization to $1.11 trillion, according to Coindesk. So far this year, Bitcoin has gained 33.28%.

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