(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin briefly topped $70,000, with crypto investment products seeing inflows for the fourth consecutive week and the latest GameStop frenzy driving memecoin speculation.
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Crypto asset inflows totaled $185 million in the week through May 31, according to CoinShares International Ltd. Investors in May in have sent $2 billion into digital-asset investment products including Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Bitcoin briefly went above $70,000 earlier on Monday, the first time in a week, while most other cryptocurrencies were mixed after an initial increase.
Traders said that the earlier gains were most likely a result of a spillover effect from the gains in GameStop shares driven by the Reddit account behind the meme-stock mania of 2021.
A cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain utilizing GameStop’s name, logo and ticker rose more than 120% on Monday, according to tracker CoinGecko, while the coin has no legitimate affiliation with the company. The move follows the surge of shares of GameStop Corp., after Keith Gill, who goes by Roaring Kitty on X, posted a screenshot on Reddit on Sunday that revealed his large stake in GME shares. Dogwifhat, one of the most popular memecoins this year, was little changed.
“The gigantic GME derivative position announced by Roaring Kitty Sunday night served to catalyze rally in the crypto space, with a meaningful rise in Doge and BTC beginning moments after his Reddit post began to circulate widely,” said Spencer Hallarn, global head of over-the-counter trading at digital-asset firm GSR.
Also driving the market is the new fund inflows in the beginning of a new month, said Shiliang Tang, president of principal trading firm Arbelos Markets.
But with the outperformance of the cryptocurrency with GME ticker, Tang said that GME news over the weekend remains the main contributor to the market gains.
Ethereum saw a second week of inflows, Coinshares’ report added, following the excitement of the approval of exchange-traded funds that directly invests in Ether in the US.
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