Bitcoin Surpasses the $69,000 Mark and Reaches a new All-Time High

Bitcoin's price soared above $69,000 on Monday, reaching an all-time high and surpassing levels last seen over two years ago.

The highest price in the history of the most capitalized asset in the crypto ecosystem had reached its previous all-time high in November 2021, with an intraday trading price of $68,991.85.

Bitcoin broke through that level on Tuesday amid a climate of strong enthusiasm among retailers and as it marches to a new halving, a 50% reduction in the reward for mined blocks that has historically coincided with a rally in Bitcoin's price, as well as the broader ecosystem.

This milestone is also significant given that the halving event, expected for April 2024, has not yet occurred and could be linked to the significant influx of purchases by companies issuing Bitcoin spot Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). This means that the currency could be poised to rally even more during the following months, if current behavior follows traditional patterns.

The ETFs were approved in January by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), making it easier for institutions and some investors to participate in the crypto ecosystem.

The nine ETFs approved -leaded by Blackrock y Fidelity Investments, which have grabbed about 79% of the entire inflow registered in the spot Bitcoin ETF ecosystem since inception- have acquired at least 76,951 bitcoins.

This is a major volume of purchases, surpassing the new Bitcoin supply produced by miners, at least five times in the week from Feb. 24 through Mar 1, according to Matt Hougan, Chief Information Officer at Bitwise, previously CEO at ETF.com.

This disparity may reach its peak following the halving, a planned event that will cut the reward in Bitcoins received for each completed block.

The block reward began at 50 BTC in 2009, then decreased to 25 BTC in 2012, halved again to 12.5 BTC in 2016, and eventually reached the current reward of 6.25 BTC in 2020, as reported by the specialized outlet Cointelegraph. The upcoming halving event is anticipated to occur in April 2024, diminishing the block reward to 3.125 BTC.

"There is great optimism in the ecosystem," Andrés Salcedo, Global Crypto Leader at Bitso, a leading Mexican exchange in Latin America, explained to The Latin Times in a recent interview.

He added that, in this context, the ecosystem has expectations of a "crypto summer" and revealed that the company was seeing "a renewed interest in Bitcoin trading among Bitso users in recent months."

During last weeks, many Latinos rejoiced in Bitcoin's rally, especially those who hold cryptocurrency and were affected by the downturn in all such assets since November 2021. That period marked the onset of what's known as "crypto winter," during which the price of Bitcoin plummeted below $20,000.

Latin American countries and the U.S. stand out for their widespread adoption of cryptocurrency, as revealed by a study conducted by Chainalysis. Several factors contribute to this trend, including the utilization of cryptocurrency for remittance transfers and its function in store-of-value transactions.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has used the country's reserves to buy Bitcoin and has been an outspoken supporter of the digital asset (even turning it into sovereign currency), showed his sentiment by reposting an image conveying a sense of the ecosystem's solid foundations.

An Expert's Tips Not to Surrender to FOMO

Ignacio Carballo, Director of the Center for Alternative Finance at UCA University and Head at PCMI, explained to The Latin Times that "Bitcoin halvings always generate anticipation and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)," and offered some advice to new traders in the ecosystem.

"Users are sometimes unfortunately more emotional and less rational than one would expect, and this leads them to take risks without measuring the true consequences. So, the recommendations are the same as we made back in 2020 when we were on the eve of the previous all-time high (ATH), and they are primarily that if you are new to this world, it's essential to educate yourself well before entering," he began.

"If you consider yourself truly a novice in this subject, perhaps start with those paths that open the most reliable crypto world. What do I mean by this? Financial institutions, and Fintechs, which have certain guarantees behind them," he added.

In this highly volatile system, the next step is not to invest more than you are willing to lose. "Even though the intention here is to earn and not to learn, the recommendation is to take this as a school of future money. So you're not going to become a millionaire with crypto, and those who have done it have really done it with a probability margin very similar to going to a casino and becoming a millionaire."

Finally, he encouraged new users "not to buy cryptocurrencies by indebting oneself with brokers, something that is very tempting when there are many platforms that have easy access to leverage, to borrow a lot. That is another demon of the investment world."

Carballo added that his hope is that "this new bull market will serve to bring many more people in to truly confirm the value that this technology has over genuine financial value and that it has undoubtedly already transformed the global system."