Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin spot ETFs fail to propel BTC prices as the leading cryptocurrency retraces to $41,600 after hitting a two-year high of $49,000 on the first trading day of the 11 ETFs green-lit by the SEC
- JPMorgan analysts are skeptical of whether fresh capital would enter the crypto market at the level the market expects just because spot Bitcoin ETFs are available
- SkyBridge CEO Anthony Scaramucci predicts Bitcoin to hit $170,000 18 months after the halving event in April
Bitcoin (BTC), the apex cryptocurrency, has been giving mixed signals even after the approval and trading of the highly-anticipated Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), proving warnings by analysts that a “sell-the-news” event could occur to be true.
Sell-the-news is a term used in the capital markets to describe a phenomenon where the price of an asset – in this case, Bitcoin (BTC), its leverage and sentiment escalate in the lead-up to a bullish event – ETF approval, only for it to experience a subsequent decline shortly after.
Bitcoin Drops To $41,000 After Hitting $49,000 On First Trading Day Of BTC Spot ETFs
Following a brief surge to its two-year high of nearly $49,000 after the first-ever spot Bitcoin ETF began trading in the US last Thursday, BTC retraced to a low of $41,600 before rebounding.
The new Bitcoin-focused funds are intended to provide retail and institutional investors exposure to Bitcoin without them needing to hold or store the cryptocurrency directly.
A recent research report by JPMorgan highlighted that the Bitcoin ETFs are expected to attract substantial capital from various crypto-related products. Despite the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) cautious approach to the investment product, the market’s demand for it has been relatively subdued.
Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, a managing director at JPMorgan and the head of the bank’s global markets and digital asset strategy, mentioned in the report that the megabank is “skeptical” of investors’ optimism that spot Bitcoin ETFs would bring a lot of fresh capital to the crypto space.
Despite The Negative Return, Analysts Say the Real Impact of Spot ETFs on Bitcoin Price Will Be Shown in the Coming Years
Meanwhile, prominent crypto analyst Michael Van de Poppe noted that the Bitcoin spot ETF has yielded a negative return since its launch. In an X post, he wrote that even though the ETFs have provided a massive net inflow in the first few trading days, the real impact of the funds will be shown in the “coming few years”.
“A mega bullish event,” declared de Poppe.
However, pseudonymous analyst DonAlt suggested that Bitcoin is poised for a “rapid and forceful” price correction once it touches the $60,000 level. He also expects BTC to reach as high as $90,000 once the pullback is over.
Blockchain analytics firm Santiment observed that larger Bitcoin wallets were moving older tokens at an increased pace in anticipation of the recent Bitcoin ETF approvals, which caused a considerable decrease in the average age of coins held in these wallets.
Santiment analysts said that the “continued movement” of older Bitcoin was done “for the time being,” increasing the likelihood of the crypto bull cycle “finally halting for now”.
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They also added that a few large whales could move a large number of Bitcoins that would push the BTC mean dollar invested age further down, creating another wave to test the $45,000 and $50,000 range.
Anthony Scaramucci Predicts BTC to Reach $170K By Late 2025
While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Anthony Scaramucci – CEO of crypto hedge fund SkyBridge – predicted that Bitcoin could reach $170,000 by mid-to-late 2025.
He explained that whatever the price of Bitcoin is on the day of halving, “multiply it by four” and that is the price the token will reach in the next 18 months.
Halving is when the reward for mining Bitcoin is cut in half. The event occurs once every four years or every time 210,000 blocks are added to the blockchain. The policy was written into the crypto asset’s mining algorithm to counteract inflation by maintaining scarcity.
The next halving, set to take place in April, will cut the Bitcoin mining reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. This will be the fourth such event. Previous Bitcoin halvings took place in 2012, 2016, and 2020.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $42,842 – up 0.5% in the last 24 hours.
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