One year ago today, Gary Gensler and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally caved and approved Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading to go live the next day. These ETFs will remain the best-performing ETFs in history, with BlackRock’s $IBIT ETF leading the charge, raising more than $52 billion. Inflows Lonely.
I feel like a lot of people are afraid to admit it, or don’t want to, but ETFs were the most important moment in Bitcoin’s history over the course of 2024. Looking back on the year, it’s like all that happened was favoring Bitcoin downstream from these approvals. . Let me explain.
The six major events that occurred in 2024 were as follows:
- SEC Approval of Instant Bitcoin ETF
- Donald Trump pledges the United States to embrace Bitcoin
- MicroStrategy and other companies adopting Bitcoin
- Price: $100,000
- Gary Gensler resigns from the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Half
When blackrock foot For his ETF at the end of the bear market in 2023, it was the beginning of a new bull market for me. We immediately saw a stampede of other large asset managers also rushing to apply for an ETF, and the price of Bitcoin has soared ever since – Bitcoin was priced at $24,900 when BlackRock introduced its ETF, then $46,000 when it was approved, today we sit at just under $100,000.
The primary driver of interest and further adoption of Bitcoin is its price, not its utility. Large price increases bring the most interest, new pools of capital, and generate more interest in the asset overall. When the price of Bitcoin falls, all the tourists leave and only the HODLers stay.
Bitcoin ETFs helped push the price higher in historic fashion, paving the way for Donald Trump to embrace them. Bitcoin is no longer just magic online money for a small group of people on the Internet, it is now backed by the world’s largest asset managers at BlackRock and Fidelity. The massive amounts of inflows into these products were like a tsunami, showing the true extent of demand for Bitcoin and the new direction our country was heading in financially. It showed that this is an industry that is expected to grow dramatically, and I think Trump, like many other politicians including senators and congressmen, realized that they were better positioned to fight with us than against us.
Now with the price rally supported by the largest asset managers, and a new pro-bitcoin administration arriving in the White House, this has given the green light to MicroStrategy and other companies to delve deeper into the asset. And that’s exactly what happened.
Michael Saylor has increased MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin purchases like never before, and has no signs of slowing down in 2025. Their stock’s outperformance of Bitcoin has caught the attention of countless other publicly traded companies who have copied “Bitcoin for businessesstrategy, all of which increases buying pressure on Bitcoin, causing the asset to rise. MicroStrategy is raising over $42 billion to buy more Bitcoin to target everyone who doesn’t have anything yet – this huge increase in demand and regulatory certainty is sending Bitcoin pools into a FOMO frenzy.
All of this combined, including the halving event, where new Bitcoin production was halved to just 3,125 BTC per block, sent us to a new all-time high of over $108,000. The high buying demand on most days of a standstill determines the amount of new coins being mined, causing the price to rise even further. Just the other day, BlackRock’s ETF alone bought over 6,078 bitcoins while miners created just 450 new bitcoins. There is not enough Bitcoin for everyone, and they are only producing 21 million coins.
New:
Black Rock spot #Bitcoin The ETF bought 6,078 BTC today, while miners mined only 450 new BTC.
absolute. Scarcity. pic.twitter.com/KkHGpP2WAL
– Nicholas Hoffmann (@NicholausHoff) January 8, 2025
The success of these ETFs and the change in presidential administration spelled bad news for the SEC and other anti-bitcoin regulators and politicians. Gary Gensler, who helped block the approval of spot ETFs for years, is officially leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both of the SEC’s Democratic commissioners who voted against approval will also leave the commission. Bitcoin now appears set to flourish in the United States over the next four years without being attacked by the regulators and politicians who have stymied the industry for so long.
ETFs were a huge moment for the industry, and things would likely have turned out very differently if they had not been approved. The price of Bitcoin would likely be much lower than it is today, and we might have had a different winner in the US presidential election if it had not been approved. A lot of great things have happened for Bitcoin in the past year, and all after it received ETF approvals.
This article is a takes. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
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