Bitcoin reached exactly $112,000 on Coinbase’s BTC-USD market during the UTC session of May 22, 2025, establishing a new record on the major U.S. dollar venue. The milestone pushed bitcoin into price discovery while demand through regulated U.S. investment products remained strongly positive.
Coinbase’s daily candle beginning at 00:00 UTC on May 22 records an opening price of $109,697.19, a session low of $109,217.23, the $112,000 high and a closing price of $111,722.53. The close was 1.85% above the open, according to Coinburn’s calculation from those two observations. Coinbase reported 11,250.38756124 BTC of trading volume inside the bucket.
Contemporaneous cryptocurrency coverage also reported that bitcoin touched $112,000 on Coinbase on May 22. The event extended the record set during the preceding session, when bitcoin had already moved beyond its January peak.
A venue record with defined limits
The precise claim is that Coinbase BTC-USD traded at $112,000 during the May 22 UTC window. Bitcoin has no consolidated global tape, universal closing auction or single official dollar price. Other exchanges and aggregate data services reported slightly different highs because they observed different trades, venues, liquidity pools and timestamps.
Coinbase defines each historical candle as a grouped interval containing its lowest, highest, first and last prices plus trading volume. Its documentation warns that historical data can be incomplete when an interval contains no reported ticks. May 22 was an active session, but the methodological warning still applies.
The 1.85% calculation is an open-to-close return for one Coinbase UTC candle. It is not a return measured from the previous U.S. stock-market close, a volume-weighted global index or the experience of every bitcoin holder. The volume figure likewise covers the named Coinbase product rather than worldwide spot trading.
ETF demand supplied measurable institutional context
Farside Investors’ issuer-level table records an estimated $934.8 million of aggregate net inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds for the May 22 trading session. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $877.2 million, or 93.8% of the total according to Coinburn’s calculation. Fidelity’s FBTC added $48.7 million and Bitwise’s BITB added $8.9 million; the remaining products recorded zero, no reported figure or no net movement in the table.
The May 22 total followed $607.1 million of estimated net inflows on May 21. Adding the two dated observations produces approximately $1.542 billion, demonstrating sustained demand through listed products across two U.S. trading sessions.
Those figures do not prove that ETF creations caused Coinbase’s $112,000 trade. Net fund flows are different from ETF share-trading volume, and authorized participants can use inventory or execute related transactions outside the cited price window. The dataset does not identify the ultimate investors or establish when associated bitcoin purchases occurred.
Regulation formed part of the backdrop
The record also followed a procedural advance for federal stablecoin legislation. On May 21, the U.S. Senate agreed to proceed with consideration of S.1582, the GENIUS Act. Contemporaneous market coverage presented progress on U.S. crypto legislation as one favorable influence on sentiment.
That explanation should be treated as interpretation rather than demonstrated causation. Bitcoin’s price could also have reflected spot demand, derivatives positioning, short covering, macroeconomic expectations and liquidity conditions. The verified May 22 record establishes the simultaneous occurrence of a Coinbase price high, substantial estimated ETF inflows and an improving legislative backdrop; it cannot isolate their individual effects.
What May 22 established
The defensible conclusion is narrow but significant: bitcoin entered new dollar-price territory on Coinbase, finished the UTC session above $111,700 and did so alongside one of the largest daily U.S. spot-bitcoin ETF inflow totals recorded to that point in 2025. Later bitcoin records do not alter the May 22 milestone and are not projected backward into this reconstruction.
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This article provides news and analysis, not investment, legal or tax advice. Digital assets are volatile and may result in total loss.