Bitcoin price climbs above $64,000 briefly, BTC futures open interest hits all-time high

The price of bitcoin rose above the $64,000 mark at one stage on Monday morning in Asia, swinging around 7% away from the cryptocurrency’s all-time high set in November 2021, according to The Block’s Price Page . 

As of 9:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, traded at around $63,500, rising 3.4% in the last 24 hours. The GMCI 30 Index , measuring the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, was at 137.39, up 2.21% in 24 hours.

In the past 24 hours, the liquidation in bitcoin positions amounted to $59.27 million, with about $38.52 million being shorts, according to Coinglass data . 

The price action came amidst the daily open interest for bitcoin futures on centralized exchanges reached an all-time high of $27.53 billion on Monday morning in Asia, Coinglass data showed. Open interest , a measure of the total value of all outstanding bitcoin futures contracts across exchanges, indicates increased market activity and trader sentiment.

Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen a significant increase in assets under management, with BlackRock’s IBIT reaching $10 billion last week. The cumulative volume for spot bitcoin ETFs amounted to $73.91 billion as of March 1, compared to $29.19 billion on Feb. 1, according to Yahoo Finance data compiled by The Block.

Bitcoin BTC +3.31% is also nearing its next halving event, which is expected to occur in April. The halving is set to reduce miner rewards by 50%. This may negatively impact miners' profitability and lead to a higher bitcoin production cost, resulting in bitcoin price declines, JPMorgan analysts wrote in a report last week.

The price of ether rose 1.6% to trade at around $3,400 on Monday morning in Asia, according to The Block’s data.