Bitcoin Tops $49K as Bitcoin ETF Inflows Accelerate

• Bitcoin’s price topped $49,000 Monday after strong spot bitcoin ETF inflows late last week.

• Bitcoin ETFs gained net $1.1 billion fresh funds amid slowing GBTC outflows.

Bitcoin (BTC) topped $49,000 Monday supported by last week’s strong exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows and signs of institutional accumulation.

The largest crypto was hovering around $48,000 earlier during the day before experiencing a sudden spike to $49,100 in the beginning of the U.S. trading session. At press time, BTC was changing hands slightly above $48,900, up nearly 2% over the past 24 hours and outperforming the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index’s (CD20) minor, 0.2% decline.

The price action is supported by last week’s strong inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs, attracting over $1.1 billion net fresh funds amid slowing outflows from incumbent funds such as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and ProShares’ futures-based ETF, asset management firm CoinShares reported Monday.

However, potential selling pressure from Genesis, a crypto lender under bankruptcy protection, liquidating its $1.6 billion worth of GBTC holdings could weigh on ETF net inflows and prices in the next months.

Macro analyst Noelle Acheson said that bitcoin is currently benefiting from increased accumulation mainly driven by expectations of capital injection in China to stem its stock market rout and inevitable currency depreciation even in developed countries in the future.

“Given the lack of any clear catalyst to explain the BTC move over the past few days, what we are probably seeing is a pick-up in accumulation for the aforementioned reasons as well as the continued spread of Bitcoin awareness as the ETF marketing machines do their thing.