Investors return with a vengeance as Bitcoin hits all-time high

Itcoin traders return with a vengeance as the cryptocurrency approaches its new all-time high and demand jumps for bullish contracts across crypto exchanges.

The world s largest digital token has surged over Friday and Saturday to about $62,100 — taking this month's rallie to over 40% after Bloomberg News reported the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission looks poised to allow the country s first futures cryptocurrency ETF.

As institutional and retail demand increases for the asset, speculators look forward to a return to April s historic peak of $64,869 in India while premiums are rising for derivatives betting on higher prices.

The United States was always the biggest prize and signals further regulatory validation and acceptance of cryptocurrencies, said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo. Momentum is clearly with Bitcoin right now and it is only a matter of time before the April high is taken out. All month long speculation about the imminent ETF approval has driven up Bitcoin, helping it outperform smaller tokens to reclaim 46% of the crypto ecosystem s total market value. An exchange traded fund is expected to draw more investors who prefer buying a familiar, highly regulated product over navigating digital currency exchanges.

In a sign of rising animal spirits, the seven-day average funding rate on Binance futures increased to 5% — the cost of keeping a bullish bet open. That compares to just 1.9% of the total Bybt data on The Block, a crypto information service, it was collected by The Block last September.

The value of outstanding futures on crypto exchanges rebounded to $21.5 billion, compared with the $27 billion peak earlier this year, according to Bybt.

Similarly, the curve has steepened in Bitcoin futures, indicating an increasingly optimistic outlook for CME prospects. The gap between December and this month s contracts increased to 990 basis points, the most since April.

Ki Young Ju, Chief Executive Officer at the analytics firm CryptoQuant, told Twitter prices have been driven by whales who buy large amounts of the cryptocurrency through derivatives.

It all marks a shift from recent months, when Bitcoin bulls were left under fire after the May crash and attention turned to a host of other speculative manias like non-fungible tokens.

With a well integrated ETF structure, crypto is poised to go mainstream, said Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank.