Of course, in January, crypto markets were bolstered by the US SEC decision. regulatory approval of several spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) โ Allows traders to access cryptocurrencies through regular exchanges.
This marked a significant shift in the SEC's approach toward digital asset trading, historically warning traders about the myriad risks associated with buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
However, his support has skyrocketed confidence in the cryptocurrency markets and helped fuel the current bull market. Black Rock and Fidelity are among the first Bitcoin ETF providers to offer trading on stock exchanges.
and the intermediation bernstein says US spot ETFs added 60,000 Bitcoin in the first month, double the rate of mining production in the same period.
Bitpanda Co-founder and CEO, Eric Demuthtold us that the SEC's action would โfundamentally change the industryโ just over a month ago, and it appears to be doing so quickly.
"Many institutional investors were unable to operate in the cryptocurrency sector within its regulatory framework, as they had to invest in traditional financial products," Demuth added.
But, now that there are regulated spot Bitcoin ETFs, Demuth believes this will โfurther encourage mass adoption of cryptoassets by institutional investors in the United States.โ
In fact, crypto infrastructure providers like Coinbase โ which is the custodian of eight out of 10 cryptocurrency traders today โ have recently stepped up their efforts to make cryptocurrencies more accessible and trading easier to understand for new users.
In the case of Coinbase, it partnered with Ledger to integrate Coinbase Pay functionalities into the Ledger Live appallowing users to transfer existing cryptocurrency holdings and transact directly, via mobile or desktop devices.
Bitcoin's rise has also been helped by the fact that trading volumes remain strong: total spot trading volumes on centralized exchanges increased 4.4% to $1.4 trillion in January 2024 .
