Bitcoin rallies 17% this week as institutional interest in the asset picks up

For many crypto investors, this week felt like the beginning of a new era – and ironically, it was driven by the old guard of financial institutions. Bitcoin ended the week up 17.1% at $30,864.67, according to Coin Metrics, for its best week since March 17. At one point on Friday, bitcoin rose to as much as $31,412.72 , its highest level since June 8, 2022. In altcoins: the tokens tied to Solana and Cardano gained roughly 12% this week, while Polygon advanced more than 13%, as of Friday evening. These are the same tokens that were under pressure earlier this month after the Securities and Exchange Commission referred to them as crypto asset securities in lawsuits brought against the biggest exchanges – Binance and Coinbase . Meanwhile, each of the major averages posted their worst weekly performance since March. The S & P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite fell three our of four trading days this week, with the Nasdaq snapping an eight-week winning streak. “Amid strengthening regulatory scrutiny from the SEC, bitcoin was hoisted above $30k as a number of TradFi [traditional finance] players have followed BlackRock’s move to file for spot bitcoin exchange traded funds this week,” said Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank. BlackRock filed an application for its spot bitcoin ETF June 15, spurring a flurry of fund filings from other asset managers. In this holiday-shortened week alone, institutions like WisdomTree and Invesco have filed or refreshed bitcoin ETF applications . BTC.CM= 5D mountain Bitcoin this week Meanwhile, an institutional-only crypto exchange called EDX Markets, backed by Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities, announced that it has gone live with bitcoin and ether trading. And finally, JPMorgan confirmed to CNBC’s “Crypto World” that it began allowing euro-denominated payments for corporate clients to make wholesale payments using its JPM Coin . This week’s price action brings bitcoin’s year-to-date gains to about 85% and advanced the cryptocurrency nearly 8% for the quarter, as of Friday evening. Still, for crypto, the period since the end of this year’s banking crisis has been marked by low trading volume, even as it’s moved in a positive direction recently. In the past two weeks, bitcoin’s trading volume has increased 0.5% on a week-over-week basis, according to JPMorgan. That contrast could mean bitcoin hasn’t attracted new money or investors into the crypto market, according to Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer. With a lot of good priced in this week, don’t be surprised to see a minor pullback in the week ahead, Lau said. There isn’t much on the calendar in the coming days, and investors “may just sell the strength and wait for the next catalyst.” From a technical point of view, Hasegawa said bitcoin’s breakout “from the two-month long descending channel is a bullish sign, especially since bitcoin’s trading volume has noticeably increased, but from a macro perspective, a continued cash inflow may not be likely.” “Bitcoin may be able to print another leg up to around $32,000 in the short term due to technical reasons, but it feels like the current recovery has a short expiration date,” he added.