First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Regains $67,000, Adds Nearly 5% in 24 Hours

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Bitcoin rose about 5% in the past 24 hours, regaining $67,000 during the Asian morning. BTC has outperformed the wider digital asset market, which has added around 4%, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20). Attention will likely turn to Nashville for cues on the next move for world's largest cryptocurrency, as the BTC 2024 conference gets underway. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called himself "a huge supporter of bitcoin," and said he had most of his wealth in BTC, in a conference speech on Thursday. Republican candidate Donald Trump is set to speak on Saturday.

Ether continues to underperform the wider crypto market following $152 million of outflows from ETH exchange-traded funds. Current cumulative flow for the ETFs since they started trading this week is negative $178.68 million. That's mainly owing to withdrawals from Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which converted to an ETF. "This situation is very similar to the bitcoin ETF product launched at the beginning of the year," CoinShares analysts said in an emailed note. Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which converted from a closed-end structure into an ETF that allowed redemptions for the first time in 10 years, weighed on bitcoin's price over the first weeks. Ether has risen by around 2% in the last 24 hours, sitting at $3,240 at the time of writing.

The municipal pension plan of Jersey City, New Jersey, will soon invest in bitcoin via ETFs, according to a Thursday social media post from Mayor Steven Fulop. The move follows a Wisconsin pension making a similar decision earlier this year. The investment is expected to be completed "by the end of the summer," according to Fulop's post on X. Though Fulop did not specify exactly how much of the pension funds' assets will be allocated to bitcoin ETFs, he said it would be “similar” to the 2% allocation made by Wisconsin’s state pension fund. Fulop did not specify which bitcoin ETF Jersey City was considering for the investment.

- Omkar Godbole