(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin pushed past $49,000 for the first time since December 2021 with trading commencing on the first US exchange-traded funds that invest directly in the biggest cryptocurrency.Most Read from BloombergSEC Authorizes Bitcoin-Spot ETFs in Crypto’s BreakthroughGoogle Lays Off Hundreds in Hardware, Voice Assistant TeamsAmazon’s Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of StaffThese Are the World’s Most Powerful Passports in 2024SEC Says FBI Is Investigating Compromise of Agency’s X A
Bitcoin Surges Past $49,000 as Trading of US Spot ETFs Commences
(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin pushed past $49,000 for the first time since December 2021 with trading commencing on the first US exchange-traded funds that invest directly in the biggest cryptocurrency.
The token’s price advanced as much as 6.7% to $49,021, the highest since December 2021, buoyed by the approval of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs by the US Securities and Exchange Commission after markets closed on Wednesday.
“A much wider audience of investors can now buy into Bitcoin in an easy and reliable way,” said Michael Safai, founding partner at Dexterity Capital.
“The ETF is effectively a watershed moment for financial advisers who now must have an opinion on this asset-class,” said Sui Chung, chief executive of data provider CF Benchmarks, which supplies indexes for several of the approved ETFs. “They might still not recommend it to their clients, but the fact it’s now available through a regulated product means they must at least have a viewpoint. This could open the door to a much more steady flow of interest and flows into the asset-class.”
The first exchange-traded funds in the U.S. holding spot bitcoin are expected to start trading Thursday after [getting the greenlight](https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/sec-approves-bitcoin-etfs-for-everyday-investors-dc3125ef) from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The new exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, will give investors an asset that closely tracks the price of bitcoin, providing those hesitant to buy actual bitcoins a lower bar to entry. The wave of approvals may work in your favor as fund managers seek to attract investors by competing on fees. The SEC's approval, however, was lukewarm at best.
Shares of the company, which operates vehicles from Tesla Inc and Swedish EV maker Polestar among others, fell about 3% at market open. Hertz had said it would order 100,000 Teslas by the end of 2022 and followed that with a decision to buy up to 65,000 units over five years from Polestar. "Expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter...," Hertz said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
