Why Altcoins Were on Fire Today | The Motley Fool

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, can be a powerful inducement for investors, particularly in the volatile world of cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, the emotion helped push the world’s most popular digital coin to price levels it hasn’t seen in years.

As is often the case, on the back of that increase, a large number of altcoins followed suit, with more than a few rising at a double-digit percentage. As of that afternoon, Toncoin (TON 14.01%) was up by 15%; Aptos (APT 16.14%) had advanced at a nearly 22% clip; and Fantom (FTM 4.64%) was moving 4% higher. One rare exception was Theta Network (THETA -2.55%), which, after a bullish run, was settling down with a 0.5% correction.

Bitcoin is simply not slowing down

The coin a great many of those investors fear missing out on is — it will come as no surprise — Bitcoin (BTC 7.81%). On Wednesday, the first and most prominent cryptocurrency crossed the $60,000 barrier. At one point, it traded in excess of $64,000 apiece before mellowing down to around the $61,000 level.

That’s to be expected, as investment continues to surge into the recently listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As of the end of last week, according to research from CoinShares International, more than $5.7 billion worth of customer money had found its way into these securities. Three trading days later, that tally has probably cracked $6 billion. That’s quite the pile-in, as spot Bitcoin ETFs went live only a month and a half ago.

On the other side of the fence, it seems at least one influential finance-sector company wants to enter the spot Bitcoin ETF game. Crypto news and analysis site Coindesk.com reported on Wednesday that traditional white-shoe investment bank Morgan Stanley was conducting due diligence on offering its own. This would be made available through the company’s brokerage platform (it bought E*Trade in 2020).

Who’s ready for spot altcoin ETFs?

If there’s this much rush into, and excitement circling around, spot Bitcoin ETFs, it’s inevitable the situation will be similar with spot altcoin ETFs. Already there have been bits of news and rumors that finance-sector heavyweights are developing ones based on Ethereum, the leading altcoin. As Ethereum is the blockchain of the moment for decentralized apps (DApps) and smart contracts, inflows should also be robust.

So the altcoin train will also likely keep rolling. It’s got solid momentum with the rise of Bitcoin just now, and those upcoming spot ETFs makes them even more enticing for investors.