Crypto Market Sentiment Improves on Bullish News as Bitcoin Flirts with USD 45K

cryptonews.com:

Prices of nearly all major cryptoassets traded higher today, as sentiment among market participants improved following a Russian idea (a very preliminary one) of accepting bitcoin (BTC) for oil & gas, news that an oil giant is mining BTC, and speculations that a bitcoin spot-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) could launch next year. Moreover, Terra has also started implementing its USD 10bn BTC plan, helping to push the price higher.

However, the question remains how sustainable this upward move is. At the time of writing (14:47 UTC), BTC was up 4% for the past 24 hours and almost 10% for the past 7 days, trading at USD 44,886. Meanwhile, ethereum (ETH) stood at USD 3,175, also up 5% for the past 24 hours and almost 13% for the week.

The current bitcoin price is down from a high of just over USD 45,000 earlier in the day, the highest price for BTC since it briefly traded above the key level on March 2.

The respectable performance for the two largest cryptoassets comes as Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, shared insights from a report that argued a ‘spot bitcoin ETF’ that holds actual bitcoin instead of futures contracts could be approved in the US by the summer of 2023.

According to the report, which Balchunas shared a screenshot of on Twitter, a change of the definition of ‘exchange’ by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could bring crypto exchanges under the SEC’s jurisdiction.

“After that (which could take a year) look for ETFs to get green light,” the analyst wrote.

Also adding to the bullish sentiment is a report of a senior Russian lawmaker who appeared open to the idea of selling Russian oil for bitcoin or national currencies of countries deemed as “friendly” to Russia.

“We have been proposing