“Bitcoin will bore you to a million dollars”—that’s just one of the quips making the rounds on Crypto Twitter (or X, as it’s now known) this week. Traders and influencers in the crypto world are sounding off about the market’s uneventful sideways price movements.
The king of crypto, Bitcoin, was pretty much stuck in neutral until Friday. Then, things took a turn when crypto exchange Bybit got hit by a massive hack. Over $1.4 billion in Ethereum and related tokens vanished – making it the biggest crypto heist ever, based on the value at the time. Adding fuel to the fire, concerns about rising inflation in the U.S. triggered a general selloff of riskier assets.
According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin’s currently hovering around $96,750. It actually peaked at $99,262 on Friday morning before taking a dive below $95,000 after news of the Bybit hack spooked the markets. Zooming out a bit, over the past week, Bitcoin’s price has essentially been flat, dipping just slightly by 0.7%.
So, is the bull market losing steam? Maybe, maybe not. Right now, Bitcoin is sitting about 11% below its all-time high of over $108,000, which it reached back in January.
ETF flows
Data from Farside Investors reveals that investors are still pulling their money out of those new Bitcoin exchange-traded funds here in the U.S. Every day this week, since markets reopened on Tuesday after Monday’s holiday, we’ve seen funds flowing out. Thursday was the toughest day, with nearly $365 million exiting these 10 funds alone. The other days of the week saw outflows in the $60-$65 million range each.
Just last week, these crypto ETFs already took a hit after the Federal Reserve hinted they weren’t rushing to cut interest rates. When the next round of numbers comes out, we’re likely to see more of the same – lukewarm interest as American investors seem to be playing it safe, especially with inflation looking like it’s sticking around for a while.
Institutions still bullish
However, the folks at investment firm Bernstein are still big believers in Bitcoin’s future. In a report released on Monday, they argued that investors should buckle up for another surge in Bitcoin and related stocks. They believe the price will be driven upward by “the growing adoption from banks, institutional investors, corporations, and eventually even governments.”
And Bernstein isn’t new to the bullish game – they’ve previously predicted Bitcoin could hit a whopping $200,000 by the end of 2025.
Fold goes public
In other news, another Bitcoin-focused company is stepping into the mainstream spotlight. Fold, a financial services firm known for its Bitcoin rewards debit card and app, started trading publicly on the Nasdaq Composite this Wednesday.
As one of the few publicly traded Bitcoin companies, Fold’s IPO signifies growing mainstream acceptance of the crypto industry. Sounds bullish, right? You’d think so, but FLD kicked off trading at $10 on Wednesday, briefly climbed over $13, before tumbling below $7 by Friday’s closing bell, amidst all the market turbulence mentioned earlier.
DOG expands to Solana
In other corners of the crypto world, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (or just DOG for short), the top dog in Bitcoin Runes meme coins, is now available on Solana. This expansion is thanks to a bridge that allows trading across both Bitcoin and Solana blockchains. DOG’s anonymous creator, Leonidas, told Decrypt that this move is “just following in the footsteps of BTC,” aiming to broaden access to the token and, by extension, Bitcoin-related products.
Now, Bitcoin purists might not all agree with that strategy, but time will tell if it boosts DOG’s price. Currently, it’s up about 3% in the last 24 hours, but it’s worth noting that DOG has taken a significant dive since its December peak, plummeting a hefty 72%.
