Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies prices surged on Wednesday, with Bitcoin rising above $8,300 amid prospects of the first cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval.
Bitcoin was trading at $8,352.5 by 12:31AM ET (04:31 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, up 6.9% in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, jumped 6.0% to $480.2 on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ripple’s XRP token traded 4.7% higher to $0.46238 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin also gained 6.3% and traded at 87.974 on Tuesday.
Bitcoin, the largest virtual currency, has jumped 40% since the start of July and 13% so far this week as speculation mounts that a Bitcoin ETF could be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as August.
The total value of cryptocurrencies worldwide is now approaching $300 billion, according to reports.
Bloomberg reported that Bitwise Asset Management filed a registration statement Tuesday with the SEC to offer the first publicly traded crypto index fund. Three other requests from exchanges that want to list Bitcoin ETFs have also been submitted since January.
Despite the latest gains, Bitcoin still remains almost 60% down its peak of almost $20,000 in December.
“We’ve been in depressed levels for the last six months, so it’s really one way from here, which is up,” said Timothy Tam, chief executive officer with CoinFi, a cryptocurrency data analysis company, in an interview with Bloomberg. “The timing is always difficult to predict but I think we’re at the start of a secular bull market.”
In other news, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is reportedly entering the South Korean markets. The announcement was made by Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao during the Blockchain Partners Summit held in Seoul, South Korea on July 21.
Local media first reported the crypto exchange’s interest to extend its services to South Korea since August 2017, when it added support for the Korean language on its platform.