Bitcoin hits highest level since July, boosting crypto-related stocks

The price of bitcoin neared $68,400 on Wednesday, reaching its highest level since July and sparking a rally across the crypto sector.

Bitcoin is up more than 9% over the past week and ether is up about 7%. Other popular coins have also rallied, with solana up close to 10% in the past seven days and dogecoin up 15%.

The gains have made their way to crypto-pegged stocks. Digital asset exchange Coinbase climbed 7% on Wednesday, bringing its three-day rally to 19%. The stock is at its highest since August.

Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms also moved higher on Wednesday.

One reason for bitcoin’s 53% gain so far this year is a host of new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds that hit the market in January, welcoming in a host of new investors. Ether ETFs followed in July.

Investors have bought $1.2 billion in ETF shares in the past three days, bringing total holdings to more than $63 billion. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has accounted for more than 30% of the new purchases.

Samara Cohen, chief investment officer of ETF and index investments at BlackRock, told CNBC recently that 80% of buyers of IBIT are direct investors. Of those, 75% have never owned a BlackRock ETF, she said.

“We went into this journey with the expectation that we needed to educate ETF investors on crypto and on bitcoin specifically,” Cohen said. “As it turns out, we have done a lot of education of crypto investors on the benefits of the ETP wrapper.”