The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC) hit USD 50,000 three times in less than 24 hours and on the third attempt it almost reached USD 51,000 before correcting lower.
At the time of writing (07:53 UTC), BTC trades at USD 50,861, correcting from its new all-time high of USD 50,902, per Coingecko.com data. The price is up by almost 4% in a day and 9% in a week. It increased its monthly gains to 42% and rallied by 412% in a year.
BTC price chart:
In the past hour, ethereum (ETH), altcoins have also started moving higher, trimming their daily losses.
“There are a number of reasons why bitcoin is soaring, but what stands out most is the trend that MicroStrategy started and Tesla popularized: moving institutional balance sheets into bitcoin to hedge against inflation," Nicholas Pelecanos, Head of Trading at NEM, said in an emailed comment.
According to him, this is just the start of a trend that could see billions of dollars flow into the crypto space over the course of 2021 — all at a time when the supply is becoming extremely squeezed.
"The total amount of bitcoin on exchanges has reduced by a third-year on year, which means the upside moves will continue to be aggressive. USD 50,000 is euphoric, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the price doubled again within a year,” Pelecanos said.
Meanwhile, Rob Levy, Co-founder and President of Hxro, a crypto derivatives trading platform, this bull market is different.
"This is not a speculative, retail-driven mania. On the contrary, this is very much institutionally driven. It is no coincidence that it comes on a day that MicroStrategy announces another USD 600m debt offering which will be used to buy more bitcoin. True institutional adoption is accelerating at a remarkable place. That is more important than arbitrary price levels in USD,” he said.
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Reactions:
@PeterLBrandt There have been 4...
— Dan Held (@danheld)
BTC to $60k+ and alts sideways/down max pain?
— Flood (@ThinkingUSD)
#bitcoin looks primed to make a big break above $50k, once it clears, it will likely test and break $60k quickly. W… https://t.co/IxKnXpedvw
— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham)
Later this year when bitcoin crashes from $280,000 to $90,000, all the haters will once again declare victory
— Danny Diekroeger (@dannydiekroeger)
First hourly candle to close above 50k!
— Eden Au (@au_eden)
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(Updated at 08:04 UTC with the infographics and reactions).
