Bitcoin soared above $45,000 - what's going on?

Since the start of the year, Bitcoin has seen an impressive surge of 6% or more in its growth. 2024 has begun with a bang for the cryptocurrency.

On Tuesday morning, BTC surged to a new high, surpassing the level it had reached in early December 2020 of $45,000.

In early April 2022, the first cryptocurrency was traded at these levels.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin surged past the $45,000 mark in the Asian session, a level it had not seen since December. Meanwhile, the leading altcoins have not been able to keep up with Bitcoin's growth and have yet to reach their recent highs.

At the end of December, BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, Valkyrie, and Bitwise - all major players in the Wall Street financial world and crypto asset operations - declared their intention to launch Bitcoin ETFs.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is anticipated to make a swift decision on the Bitcoin ETF this week, which has traders on the edge of their seats.

Reuters, citing insiders, previously reported that the SEC could announce their decision as early as January 2 or 3, instead of the later date of January 10 that was initially anticipated.

Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy, has declared that the first cryptocurrency will be the "winner of 2023" due to its remarkable performance in comparison to the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes, stocks, gold and silver in the previous year.

Experts are cautioning that a correction in Bitcoin is likely to occur after the ETF is approved. CryptoQuant predicts that this could lead to a decrease in Bitcoin's value to $32,000 due to "selling on news".

Short-term Bitcoin (BTC) holders have seen unrealized gains of 30%, which has been a sign of past price corrections. Not only traders, but miners are also in the green. This could be a potential bearish factor.