Bitcoin Drops 5% After Approaching $64,000, ETF Demand and Halving Cycle Boost Performance

According to Blockworks, Bitcoin experienced a sharp decline after nearly reaching $64,000 on Wednesday, losing 5% within minutes before stabilizing around $60,600. Despite the dip, Bitcoin remains up over 7% this week and 44% this month, with analysts attributing the increase to factors such as growing Bitcoin ETF demand, anticipation of the upcoming halving cycle in April, and favorable macroeconomic conditions. Bitcoin ETFs saw more individual trades on Tuesday than both SPY, the top S&P 500 ETF, and the Nasdaq-tracking QQQ, according to Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research. Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter, noted that the majority of trades were small, suggesting retail investors were driving the activity. Over $585 million in long and short Bitcoin positions were liquidated in the past 12 hours, as per data from CoinGlass. BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF set a new record for net inflows on Tuesday, reaching $520 million, surpassing the previous daily net inflow high of $493 million set by IBIT on February 13. Meanwhile, Ether (ETH) continued its rally, hitting around $3,470 before settling at the $3,200 level. In contrast, equities such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes traded 0.1% and 0.5% lower at the time of publication.