In the European morning hours of Wednesday, Bitcoin (BTC) surged past the $59,000 mark, marking a 5% increase over the past 24 hours and hitting a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion.
This rise in price coincided with significant trading activity in spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which saw over $3 billion in cumulative trading volumes on Tuesday, driving up demand.
Additionally, some traders attributed the surge to anticipation surrounding the upcoming bitcoin halving event expected in April, suggesting it as a new narrative driving a pre-halving rally.
According to data from Coinglass, futures bets predicting lower bitcoin prices faced $25 million in liquidations since the Asian morning hours, potentially contributing to the price hike.
Meanwhile, other major tokens like ether (ETH), Solana’s SOL, and XRP also saw gains of up to 3% since the Asian morning hours, as reported by CoinGecko.
On another front, the fear and greed index, a sentiment gauge tracking the rate of change in asset movement relative to underlying fundamentals, reached 82 on Wednesday – indicating extreme greed and hitting its highest level in over a year.
Rated on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 representing extreme fear and 100 reflecting extreme greed, such a high level of greed often signals euphoria in the market, which, according to the index developers, suggests an impending correction.
Despite these indicators, traders seem undeterred, with some anticipating that bitcoin will surpass its previous highs of $69,000 in March.
