The price of bitcoin took out its early January high and topped $52,000 for the first time since December 2021 today. Bitcoin’s price traded at a short-term peak in early January just as the ETPs tracking the largest cryptocurrency started trading. From that high on January 11th, prices pulled back over 21% in less than two weeks which, even for bitcoin, is a steep decline in such a short period.
As bitcoin pulled back from that early January high, it looked as though its price would follow a similar path to the one it tracked following other approval milestones. In December 2017, after bitcoin futures launched, prices almost immediately peaked and plunged more than 80%. Then again in October 2021, when the bitcoin futures ETF first launched, prices peaked shortly after once again, resulting in what was ultimately another decline of close to 80%.
As we noted a couple of weeks back, the one difference between the launch of the bitcoin ETPs in January and the other two periods was that while bitcoin’s price was at or right near record highs at each of those prior two points, it was still down over 30% from its all-time high this time around. While “investors” may have been enthusiastic ahead of the launch, the level of excitement was not nearly as strong as it was in late 2017 and late 2021. Even after today’s run to multi-year highs, bitcoin is still more than 25% below its all-time high.
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