Bitcoin is approaching $46,000 - what's going on?

Over the past 21 months, Bitcoin has achieved new record highs.

This week, Matrixport is anticipating that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) will reach $50,000.

Once an ETF is approved, K33 Research provides an opportunity to "sell the facts".

In 2023, CoinGecko identified the top 100 most lucrative cryptocurrencies.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $45,900, surpassing its previous peak of April 6, 2022. This marks the first time the digital gold has traded at such high levels since the collapse of Terra and the subsequent "contagion" of the crypto industry.

It is anticipated that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could make a ruling on Bitcoin ETFs as soon as this week, with some speculating that the announcement could come as early as January 2 or 3. This news has caused a stir in the crypto market, as the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs would be a major milestone.

It is anticipated by Matrixport that Bitcoin will be trading above $50,000 by the end of this week. The primary catalysts for the appreciation of the leading cryptocurrency are the approval of spot ETFs, institutional buying, a lack of coins in the market, and past trends.

At the start of 2024, CryptoQuant predicted that Bitcoin could surpass the $50,000 mark. This forecast was based on an examination of the behavior of digital gold holders, as well as the dynamics of transaction volume, market capitalization, and Metcalfe's law in the cryptocurrency space.

Polymarket's prediction platform has shown a dramatic increase in the likelihood of spot Bitcoin ETFs being approved before January 15th, rising from 50% last month to 89% now.

In December 2022, monthly trading volume on cryptocurrency exchanges surpassed the $1 trillion mark for the first time since May of that year ($1.35 trillion). Binance was the leader in terms of trading volume, accounting for 39.3% ($432.7 billion), followed by Upbit (8.3%, $91.8 billion) and OKX (8%, $87.5 billion).

K33 Research predicts that if the SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs between January 8 and January 10, some short-term investors may view this as an opportunity to cash out their profits. This is known as a "sell on the facts" scenario.

There is a 20% chance that a scenario could occur where a large amount of money is invested into the Bitcoin ETF, which would reduce the selling pressure from speculators.

CoinGecko reports that 92 out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have seen an increase in value in 2023, with the top 10 performing cryptos having returns ranging from 632.8% to 7302.9%.

BONK token was the most profitable digital coin of the year, with a 7.3 thousand percent increase in price. Coming in second was Injective (INJ), with a nearly 3000% rise, and CorgiAI (CORGIAI) in third with a 2000% increase. Other top performers included Kaspa (KAS), Render (RNDR), Solana (SOL), Conflux (CFX), WEMIX (WEMIX), Fetch.ai (FET) and Stacks (STX).