The S&P 500 Index (SPX) snapped a five-week winning streak last week but it is still on track to close the first half of the year with stellar gains of nearly 13%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has done much better as it is up about 29%. Both these indices have been overtaken by Bitcoin (BTC) which has risen nearly 83% year-to-date.
Bitcoin’s bullish price action and the recent rush by several firms to apply for a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund seem to have attracted institutional investors’ attention. Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas highlighted on June 26 that the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) — a Bitcoin futures fund — witnessed its largest weekly inflow in a year.