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On Wednesday, the price of Bitcoin approached $68,400, its highest level since July, sparking a rally across the cryptocurrency sector.
Bitcoin is up more than 9% in the last week, and Ethereum is up about 7%. Other popular coins are also rising, with Solana up nearly 10% over the past seven days and Dogecoin up 15%.
The gains spilled over into stocks linked to cryptocurrencies. Digital asset exchange Coinbase rose about 7% on Wednesday, taking its three-day gain to 19%. Stock prices are at their highest since August.
Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms also rose on Wednesday.
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Bitcoin and Coinbase rose last week.
One of the reasons Bitcoin is up 53% so far this year is that a number of new spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds hit the market in January, welcoming many new investors. Ether ETFs followed suit in July.
Samara Cohen, BlackRock’s chief investment officer for ETFs and index investing, recently told CNBC that 80% of buyers of the firm’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) are direct investors. Ta. Of those, 75% have never held a BlackRock ETF, he said.
“We approached this effort with the expectation that we needed to educate ETF investors about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular,” Cohen said. “At the end of the day, we have done a lot of educating crypto investors about the benefits of ETP wrappers.”
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