Soaring bitcoin set for best month since 2020

STORY: Bitcoin is back on a tear. Frenzied trading has the top cryptocurrency on track for its best month in more than three years. By Thursday afternoon in Asia bitcoin was trading at around $63,000, having gone even higher overnight. It’s up close to 50% this month – its strongest performance since December 2020. Now some traders say it looks set to test the record high of about $69,000 set in late 2021. Bitcoin has been boosted by the launch of exchange-traded funds featuring the currency. That has helped to draw in a new class of investors. It also reignited excitement that had been sapped by the so-called “crypto winter”, which saw prices collapse. Investors have also been buying in ahead of April’s halving event. That’s a process that takes places every four years, whereby the rate at which new tokens are released is cut in half, making them harder to get. The prospect of U.S. rate cuts has also put investors back in the mood for more speculative bets. Major exchange Coinbase Global says trading volumes have surged as a result of such factors.