On Tuesday, the prices of leading cryptocurrencies experienced a setback, retracting from their prolonged upward trajectory. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) faced a decline of over 1% during early trading in London, although it remained above the $30,000 mark, settling at approximately $30,300 (£23,802).
Bitcoin had reached its peak around $31,300 on Friday following the announcement of the forthcoming launch of the 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF by Volatility Shares, which was scheduled for Tuesday.
Instead of directly investing in bitcoin, the fund aims to capitalize on the price appreciation of Bitcoin Futures Contracts. Ether (ETH-USD) also experienced a decline of 1.3%, with its trading value hovering around $1,180.
On another note, the current global market capitalization of cryptocurrencies stands at $1.22 trillion, reflecting a 1% decrease in the past 24 hours and a 23.77% decrease compared to the corresponding period last year, as reported by data provider CoinGecko.
Bitcoin had endured a prolonged period of stagnation due to notable industry bankruptcies and regulatory actions taken by the SEC against prominent exchanges like Coinbase (COIN) and Binance. However, a surge in interest from traditional financial institutions has spurred a recent recovery. Just last week, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab (SCHW), and market maker Citadel Securities joined forces to launch EDX Markets, a platform facilitating trading of bitcoin, ether, and other digital assets.
Additionally, Blackrock (BLK), WisdomTree, and Invesco
(IVR), the world's largest asset manager, have filed applications to offer spot
bitcoin ETFs in the past two weeks, despite the SEC's prior resistance to
approving such investment vehicles.
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