Bitcoin suddenly rockets past $34K as ETF excitement grows

Uptober may have finally arrived, with the price of Bitcoin (BTC) breaking through the $34,000 mark for the first time since May last year, marking a staggering 14% gain in the past 24 hours. 

The price of Bitcoin suddenly spiked upwards on Oct. 23, with BTC gaining more than 10% from $31,000 to briefly touch $34,000 before settling down to a current price of $33,349 according to data from TradingView. 

The sudden uptick in price for Bitcoin comes amid a fresh wave of interest in upcoming spot ETF approvals and a significant increase in overall trading volumes across spot markets. 

Analyst Scott Johnson pointed out that investment giant Blackrock may soon begin the process of “seeding” their spot ETF product as early as this month. 

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote that seeding an ETF is when initial funding is provided in exchange for ETF shares which can be traded in the open market. 

Note: Seeding is typically not a lot of money just enough to get ETF going. So I wouldn’t read this as ‘omg Blackrock is buying a ton of bitcoin’ at all but more the fact they doing it and disclosing it shows another step in the process of launching.

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 23, 2023

Crypto market commentators and community members were left dumbfounded by the sudden move upwards. With independent journalists Autism Capital asking their 237,000 followers; “what the heck just happened?” 

Wait, what the heck just happened? pic.twitter.com/JFX0pr9fFI

— Autism Capital (@AutismCapital) October 23, 2023

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.