Bitcoin flies to new all-time highs, briefly topping $118,000 as institutions pile into ETFs

Bitcoin extended its rally on Friday, rising to new records overnight after bitcoin ETFs saw their biggest day of inflows of the year.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by 4% at $117,955.25, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose as high as $118,872.85. Ether rose 6%, crossing back above the $3,000 level for the first time since February.

On Thursday, bitcoin ETFs logged their biggest day of inflows of 2025 at $1.18 billion. Ether ETFs recorded their second-biggest day of inflows ever at $383.1 million, according to SoSoValue.

The rally began more slowly on Wednesday, following the release of the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting, which showed a divergence among officials about how aggressively they would be willing to cut interest rates. Bitcoin, also helped by a rally in tech stocks, ran up into the close, reaching its first new record since May 22.

“That’s when we started to really take out the top range,” said Markus Thielen, CEO of 10x Research. “It’s expected that whoever comes in to lead the Fed next is going to be dovish. We also know, that saving the budget deficit has sort of been pushed under the rug,” he added, nodding to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which is expected to increase the federal deficit – and which can be a positive catalyst for bitcoin.

This week’s move higher triggered a big wave of short liquidations. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin has seen more than $550 million in short liquidations and ether more than $195 million. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.

Rates have been a theme for institutions going back to about April 17. That’s when inflows into bitcoin ETFs ramped up, and when President Donald Trump hinted that the “termination” of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could be necessary given the central bank’s stance on interest rates. Since then, inflows have grown to nearly $16 billion.

Investors have been expecting bitcoin to reach new records in the second half of the year as corporate treasuries accelerate their bitcoin buying sprees and Congress gets closer to passing crypto legislation. It would take a macro event to knock the bitcoin price or suppress it, according to Thielen.

“Powell might turn dovish end of the month at the Fed meeting, and maybe he will not,” Thielen said. “So we have to take the market relatively short-term simply because there are no real macro catalysts during the summer, and normally, long-only equity investors also pare back their risk into the summer.”

For the week, bitcoin is on track for a nearly 10% gain and its best week since April 25, while ether is up more than 21%, heading for its best week since May 9.

— CNBC’s Nick Wells contributed reporting.