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Bitcoin rose on Monday by as much as 2.6%, to $61,229, as the crypto world prepared for a week dominated by Coinbase’s direct listing on Wednesday. The surge took the coin close to its all-time high of $61,742, reached on March 13.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency then pared gains slightly, trading at $59,909 as of 11:25 a.m. in New York.
“There’s a lot of anticipation, some restlessness, maybe some anxiety in crypto markets today,” Justin d’Anethan, the head of sales at the Nasdaq-listed exchange Equos, told Insider.
“With BTC solidly in the upper 50Ks, everyone is looking to see if we can reclaim or surpass that last all-time high … seen a couple of weeks back,” he said.
The big event of the week in the cryptocurrency world is the crypto exchange Coinbase’s direct listing on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.
It’s set to be the first listing of a major crypto company, with Coinbase pulling in about $1.8 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2021. The exchange said in March that private-market transactions valued it at about $68 billion.
D’Anethan added, “Coinbase’s IPO is definitely a supportive move for the space as it is bolstering the legitimacy of the asset class and offering investors new ways to interact with it.”
Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at the currency firm Oanda, said in an email that “a disappointing IPO or excessive concerns over enhanced regulatory oversight could weigh on bitcoin and the other altcoins.”
Bitcoin has more than doubled in 2021 thanks to a renewed interest in digital currencies supported by huge amounts of stimulus from governments and central banks.
Now many major institutions are moving into the crypto space, adding legitimacy to bitcoin and other currencies.
But cryptocurrencies continue to divide the financial world. Many figures have said they’re too volatile to become serious investments for major players, while others have argued that they serve little purpose except speculation.