Bitcoin Skyrockets To Over $35K As BlackRock Makes Major Spot BTC ETF Move

Bitcoin (BTC), the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, skyrocketed to new highs not seen in over two years as the New York-based investment giant BlackRock made a major spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) move. This development generated excitement within the cryptocurrency market.

BTC rallied to $31,000 at the start of the week, but it seemed that the king of crypto was poised to surge to a much higher price level as it climbed to the $35,000 threshold later in the day until early Tuesday.

It initially surged above $31,000 – a price that was last seen by investors in July, and eventually torpedoed 10% to 2-1/2 year highs Monday. In just under a couple of hours after the king of crypto broke through the $34,000 price level, it further rose to as high as $35,300, according to CoinMarketCap.

But what's behind this sudden surge in the value of BTC that finally thawed the prolonged winter enveloping the market since the collapse of Terra in May, followed by the crash of the crypto empire FTX?

The uptrend could be fueled by the positive market sentiment surrounding the potential approval of spot Bitcoin ETF applications by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Spot Bitcoin ETF is being marketed by its promoters as a way to dramatically bring a stream of funds to the crypto market, mainstream adoption, and easier access to purchase BTC aside from expanding the crypto assets' pool of investors.

On Monday, BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust showed up on a list maintained by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which according to Nasdaq, offers post-rade clearance, as well as settlement, information services, and custody.

Although still waiting for approval from the U.S. financial regulator, the DTCC already listed the BlackRock fund ticker as IBTC.

Finance lawyer Scott Johnson also shared these details and noted that BlackRock has "obtained a CUSIP in prep for a launch" and that "they may be looking to seed with cash this month (which is earlier than I would've thought, but maybe nothing)."

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas explained that seeding an exchange-traded fund is "typically not a lot of money just enough to get ETF going," underlining that "seeding an ETF is when initial funding is provided (typically) by a bank or broker-dealer used to purchase a few creation units (in this case bitcoin) in exchange for ETF shares which can be traded in open market on Day One."

BTC was trading in the green zone at $34,040.16 as of 2:49 a.m. ET Tuesday, with a 24-hour trading volume up by 215.80% at $47.02 billion -- representing a 10.62% spike over the past 24 hours and a 20.7% gain in the last seven days.

According to the latest data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin's total circulating supply stands at 19.52 million tokens, with its value up by 10.55% at a $664.42 billion market cap.