Bitcoin rose 3% to $62,216.43 on the final day of February, according to Coin Metrics. On Wednesday, it surged to $64,000 at one point, before a wave of long liquidations triggered a pullback to about $60,000.
As bitcoin took a breath after its big run on Thursday — it’s on pace for a 21% weekly gain — other cryptocurrencies caught up. Ether surged 3.5% to $3,400.80. Tokens tied to Ethereum rivals Solana and Cardano jumped 16% and 9%, respectively.
The two blue-chip coins shot higher in February after finishing January little changed. Bitcoin ended up nearly 45% for the month, marking its sixth-straight monthly gain — its best showing since December 2020.
February was a triumph for bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which saw a record $677 million in daily net inflows on Wednesday alone, the third straight day of inflows above $500 million.
Initially, outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF (GBTC), which had a head start on rivals from its days as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, had weighed on the bitcoin price. Those outflows have since diminished.
Investors attribute February’s explosive gains to Bitcoin’s supply and demand dynamics. Sylvia Jablonski, CEO and chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs, pointed to the new ETFs and the upcoming bitcoin halving as catalysts.
“We’ve seen over $2 billion coming into the various bitcoin ETFs so there’s been this need to access more supply of bitcoin to build these ETFs and that ends up driving prices up, particularly in the near term,” she said.