Bitcoin reclaims $54k two years after painful crash at the start of winter

Bitcoin (BTC) surged 6% on Feb. 26 to a new two-year high of $54,910 after US markets began trading, an indication of rising interest in the flagship crypto from retail and institutional investors.

Bitcoin was trading at roughly $54,650 as of press time, up 5.6% on a daily basis, with a market cap of $1.07 trillion, according to CryptoSlate data.

Start of winter

The last time Bitcoin was trading at these levels was in December 2021 — 21 days after it hit a new all-time high of $69,044 on Nov. 10, 2021.

On Dec. 3, 2021, Bitcoin was trading around $54,365 after giving up significant gains over the past three weeks following its rally to a new all-time high amid profit-taking and shifting market conditions.

However, the drawdown had only just begun, as the flagship crypto saw a severe dip over the next 24 hours that took Bitcoin to a painful low of $42,000 before recovering some of the almost $15,000 in losses before the day closed.

By the end of Dec. 4, 2021, Bitcoin was trading at $49,191, down 8.6% over a single day.

ETF performance, halving hype

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have continued their strong performance over February and experienced a significant spike in volume on Feb. 26 to set a new record of $2.4 billion in daily volume.

According to data shared by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT posted a record trading volume of $1.3 billion as of press time, which brings it to the top 0.3% of all ETFs and the top 25 of all stocks for the day.

Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETF inflows for the past week stood at $583 million. The total is made up of more than $1 billion in inflows, which are offset by $436 million of Grayscale’s GBTC outflows.

Notably, GBTC outflows have slowed down significantly over the past couple of weeks, with the ETF recording only $44.2 million in outflows on Feb. 23.