Bitcoin Surges On MicroStrategy's Bold Purchase; Ethereum and Dogecoin Follow Suit: Analyst Sees ETH Hitting $3,500 After SEC Acknowledges Fidelity Spot ETF Filing

Major cryptocurrencies experienced a surge on Thursday evening, driven by two significant developments, one involving Bitcoin and the other Ethereum.

What Happened: On the Bitcoin front, Michael Saylor owned Microstrategy Inc MSTR, the largest corporate holder of BTC purchased an additional 16,130 BTC, valued at approximately $608 million based on current prices.

According to a regulatory filing on Thursday, Microstrategy acquired bitcoin for $593.3 million in cash, at an average price of around $36,785 per coin. With this purchase, the company now holds a total of 174,530 BTC, acquired at an average price of about $30,252 per coin.

On the Ethereum front, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially acknowledged Fidelity Investments’ filing for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF). Fidelity had initially submitted their SEC application on November 17.

Top Gainer (24 Hour)

The global crypto market cap has reached $1.42 trillion, marking a 0.40% decrease in the last 24 hours.

The S&P 500 rose by 0.4% to reach 4,567.80, indicating a positive performance. However, the Nasdaq Composite experienced a slight dip of about 0.2% and stood at 14,226.22. 

Data released on Thursday revealed that the personal consumption expenditures price index, considered the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, showed a 3.5% increase on a year-over-year basis. This indicates a slowdown compared to the previous month’s 3.7% annual gain.

Moreover, the 10-year Treasury yield, which had caused concern among investors when it exceeded 5% last month, has seen a decline this month due to the release of cooling inflation data. On Thursday, the 10-year yield ticked slightly higher, reaching 4.34%.

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Analyst Notes: Eli Taranto, Executive Director at EQI Bank in a note seen by Benzinga said, "As inflation data coming out of the US shows signs of cooling, BTC remains within the $37K corridor. Interestingly, as more and more industry giants look to tokenization we may see another market driver. JP Morgan and Citibank have both launched tokenization projects. Many industry trials are expected to either near completion or finish this year, with the next stage rollout likely to excite markets."

He added, "We may see another market driver begin to emerge, as tokenization begins to take center stage in the digital asset space. Two weeks ago, the Bank of Singapore, and the Bank of Korea  started CBDC trials that include tokenization of bank assets."

Cryptocurrency analyst Michael Van de Poppe said that the Fidelity filing for an Ethereum Spot ETF supports his thesis. He predicts that, following Bitcoin’s rise, Ethereum will surge to $3,500 in Q1 2024.

According to pseudonymous crypto analyst Daan Crypto Trades, the pricing of Bitcoin has significantly improved, reaching a more “fair value” compared to the past.  "6-8 weeks ago, the value vs expectations just didn’t match up. Clearly."

According to data from Santiment, an on-chain data analytics firm, the number of exchange wallets has reached its lowest level in 6 months, with only 8.03 million ETH. In contrast, non-exchange wallets have soared to an all-time high of 41.03 million ETH. This data indicates a trend of more people choosing to move their coins to self custody.

Photo by Igor Faun on Shutterstock

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