By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – has soared in recent weeks ahead of the launch of a futures-based exchange traded fund, but the bitcoin bulls see plenty of gains still up for grabs as bets on $100,000 by year-end heat up.

The intraday peak of $62,623 was just 0.3% above the record of $64,778.

ProShares’ futures-based, exchange-traded fund will trade on Tuesday at the NYSE under ticker “BITO.”

BTC is likely to be listed publicly as an ETF, which will allow investors who want exposure but are not interested in the cryptocurrency to see it.

Bitcoin bulls have noticed the potential expansion of crypto investors.  

According to traders, the current derivative market trading actions suggest that they believe cryptocurrency will surpass its record-breaking highs and even reach 100,000 this year.

Contracts involving favored options [on bitcoin] appear to be call options with strike prices above $100,000 … expiring at the end of the year,” Glassnode said in its weekly on-chain report.

“The bullish sentiment in the market is reflected in the open interest in call and put options.

The debate is raging over whether futures-based ETFs will drive crypto adoption ahead of their launch.

Some argue as a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund doesn’t directly own or hold bitcoin, but rather bitcoin futures, it won’t do a very good job of tracking the price of bitcoin, potentially leading to under performance.

Simeon Hyman, global investment strategies at ProShares, however, downplayed the risk.

Hyman stated Tuesday that experts have a lot to support the claim that futures markets are a better location for price discovery. CME’s futures market is regulated, but actually has more volumes than the biggest US crypto exchange.

Despite all of the bullish speculation there’s one group that needs to retain their crypto in order to maintain the bull run: long-term holders.

LTH are long-term owners who have started to itch to make a profit. With 98% of BTC remaining at an unrealized profit of around $98, traders could see a significant increase in cashing-in or realizing their profits, which could be a major blow to bitcoin’s sails. 

“Over the past week we have seen a slight slowing in the LTH net positioning change metric. Glassnode observed in their report that this suggests LTH spending as the price of oil rises above $60,000

However, dip-buying is still a viable option at the moment.

Glassnode said that while we now know that the coins are profitable, these indicators indicate that there is enough demand to absorb any selling pressure.”