Bitcoin crossed $40,000 for the first time since April 2022

Bitcoin crossed $40,000 on December 3, 2023, reaching a price region it had not occupied since April 2022 and marking a significant stage in its recovery from the digital-asset market failures of 2022.

Reuters recorded bitcoin at $40,085 at 22:34 GMT, up 1.55% and $611 from its previous close. Bloomberg and The Block independently reported the threshold crossing on December 3, with The Block describing it as the first move above $40,000 since April 2022.

Those figures establish a market milestone, not a universal closing price. Bitcoin trades continuously across exchanges, and Reuters did not identify the venue or composite supplying its snapshot. Prices, daily boundaries and definitions of a previous close can differ among data providers. The defensible event-day claim is therefore that bitcoin exceeded $40,000 in contemporaneous market records—not that every venue recorded the same high or close.

A threshold associated with the 2022 retreat

The $40,000 level carried historical weight because bitcoin had fallen below it during April 2022, shortly before the collapse of TerraUSD and its associated token intensified the wider crypto contraction. Returning above that threshold did not reverse the bankruptcies, losses or institutional damage that followed, but it showed how substantially market expectations had changed by December 3, 2023.

The move also extended beyond bitcoin. Reuters placed ether at $2,210.70 at its event-day snapshot, up 2.07% and $44.90 from its previous close. That comparison supports describing the session as part of a broader digital-asset advance, although it does not establish that all tokens participated or that bitcoin and ether moved for identical reasons.

Crossing a round-number threshold has no protocol-level effect. It does not alter Bitcoin’s issuance schedule, transaction processing or network security. Its importance was instead financial and psychological: $40,000 was a widely observed reference point, and clearing it supplied visible evidence of renewed demand after a prolonged period below that level.

ETF expectations supplied the institutional backdrop

Contemporaneous reports attributed part of the rally to expectations that U.S. regulators might permit exchange-traded products holding spot bitcoin. The primary regulatory record confirms that those proposals were under active review, but it does not prove that ETF expectations caused the December 3 trades.

An SEC memorandum dated November 28 documented a meeting among agency staff, BlackRock representatives and Nasdaq concerning the proposed rule change for the iShares Bitcoin Trust. An earlier SEC order had instituted proceedings to determine whether to approve or disapprove that listing proposal. As of December 3, the application remained unresolved. The meeting was evidence of an active regulatory process—not approval, a launch or fund purchases of bitcoin.

No reviewed event-day dataset identifies the buyers who pushed bitcoin through $40,000. The move could have reflected some combination of spot demand, derivatives positioning, short covering, momentum strategies and expectations surrounding pending products. Assigning a measured share to any one explanation would exceed the available evidence.

Interest-rate assumptions also mattered

The macroeconomic backdrop was changing alongside the ETF debate. On December 1, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said monetary policy had moved well into restrictive territory and that risks from under-tightening and over-tightening were becoming more balanced. He also warned that it was premature to conclude that policy was sufficiently restrictive or to speculate about easing.

Market commentary interpreted the broader environment as increasingly supportive of eventual rate reductions, but Powell did not announce a rate cut on December 1. The distinction matters: expectations about future policy may influence risk assets, while the official statement remained cautious and conditional.

The December 3 record consequently supports a narrow conclusion. Bitcoin crossed $40,000 in multiple contemporaneous price accounts amid active spot-ETF proceedings and shifting rate expectations. The evidence does not establish a single cause, a standardized global close or the durability of the advance.