'Ahalving'
'halving'
There could be more supply problems to come due to a "halving" that is scheduled to take place in two months.
When it was created in 2009 by pseudonymous software programmer Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin was programmed with a fixed supply schedule that is cut in half every four years.
After that next cut, the so-called halving, the daily supply of new coins will be 450 instead of 900.
That could push prices higher.
"We are in potentially the sweetest spot right here," Mark Connors, head of research for crypto asset manager 3iQ told Yahoo Finance. "We can’t produce more bitcoin to meet demand."
Connor’s firm has set its mid- to high-range price target for bitcoin this year at between $160,000 and $180,000. Next year, it anticipates an eye-popping target of $350,000 to $450,000 per coin.
Another money manager, VanEck, set an $80,000 2024 price target for bitcoin last quarter.
"Those estimates are admittedly a little stale now,” Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research for VanEck, said.
'Pure speculative demand'
There are certainly other factors at work in the current supply crunch beyond the demand from ETFs.
One example: The US government currently holds 215,000 BTC, according to blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, a stash that includes confiscations in various seizures such as from the 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex.
The fact that they are just being held and not sold currently is constraining the supply. But that could change when the government needs to distribute some amount of that to victims, which may mean selling.
Another big holder and buyer at the moment is MicroStrategy (MSTR), which announced Monday morning that it acquired an additional 3,000 BTC. That brought its total investment to 193,000 BTC, which was valued at over $11.8 billion as of Wednesday.