Bitcoin achieves gains of more than 150% in 2023‎

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin achieved broad gains in 2023, rising by more than 150%, after trading at levels of $16,000 at the beginning of this year, as it had been exposed to a series of shocks in 2022.

According to CNBC, the difficulties faced by the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value last year varied between the disengagement of the TerraUSD stablecoin (UST) from the US dollar, the collapse of FTX, and the US Federal Reserve beginning to tighten… Monetary policy…

But the cryptocurrency received a boost this year from institutional interest in it, as a number of players in the field of traditional finance submitted requests to issue a cryptocurrency-traded fund in America.

Bitcoin was also not significantly affected by the crisis that struck Binance, as the US Securities and Exchange Commission brought 13 charges against the cryptocurrency trading company and its CEO, including mixing billions of dollars of user funds and sending them to a European company under the control of the company’s president. .

Bitcoin’s performance was characterized by calm throughout the first half of this year, as it traded below $30,000 levels until the end of June, even though it achieved semi-annual gains of about 80%.

But Bitcoin collapsed in July and August, as the Binance crisis was still in its infancy, and amid the absence of any indication from the US Federal Reserve that the monetary tightening policy in that period was imminent.

But since September, the US Federal Reserve began stabilizing the interest rate, a policy that continued until the end of this year, in addition to its statements in its last meeting in 2023, in which it expected to reduce interest rates by 3 times next year.

This month, Bitcoin exceeded $40,000 for the first time since May 2022.

CNBC reported earlier this month that US Securities and Exchange Commission officials met with representatives from Grayscale, BlackRock, and Nasdaq about the potential conversion of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an exchange-traded fund, a move that could… The US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected it earlier this year.