Bitcoin prices climbed to a high on Saturday, jumping over a psychological milestone at $ 60,000, a move that could reassure bullish crypto-asset investors that the path is on forward for higher digital assets.
Early Saturday BTCUSD,
trading hands at $ 59,781, after hitting a new high of $ 60,322.60, according to CoinDesk.
The new token for the world’s most popular crypto comes after a relatively spying time for the funds earned due to increased adoption by a bunch of prominent institutional investors.
The jump above $ 60,000 also means bitcoin has taken less than a month to cross another $ 10,000 milestone, after hitting $ 50,000 back in mid-February.
Bitcoin broke the $ 20,000 barrier, one that hadn’t come close since December of 2017, less than three months ago.
| Date | Bitcoin $ milestone |
|
September 2017 |
$ 5,000 |
|
November of 2017 |
$ 10,000 |
|
December 2020 |
$ 20,000 |
|
January 2, 2021 |
$ 30,000 |
|
January 7, 2021 |
$ 40,000 |
|
February 16, 2021 |
$ 50,000 |
|
March 13, 2021 |
$ 60,000 |
The immediate catalyst for the recent bitcoin movement is not higher but it comes as interest in blockchain, the technology that underpins decentralized assets, has exploded.
Tokens known as nonfungible, or NFTs, which use blockchain as a means of verifying ownership of assets and collectibles, have become mainstream. The area’s once-in-a-lifetime auction was a huge hit last week when Mike Winkelmann’s artwork, known as Beeple, sold for $ 69.3 million at Christie’s less successful online auction, celebrating the third most expensive artwork sold by an artist biography, and the most expensive NFT-related sale.
But whether the NFT crack marks a new level of reckless exile in cryptos remains to be seen.
NFTs tend to be crushed to other crypto funds Ether ETHUSD,
on the Ethereum blockchain but the impetus for the cryptographic authentication is on the market for building digital assets across the board, experts say.
In general, the rise of bitcoin has been linked to gaining institutional interest from the likes of Tesla Inc. TSLA,
said it bought $ 1.5 billion in bitcoins. At the same time,
PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL,
back in November it opened the cryptocurrency platform to U.S. buyers after a narrower distribution.
Several well-known Wall Street investors, including Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones, have also embraced bitcoin. Well-known investor Bill Miller, founder of Miller Value Partners, confirmed in a letter to messages last year his bullish view on bitcoin.
The 2021 Bitcoin rally is headed for a year-to-date gain of over 100%, compared to a 7.1% increase for the Dow Jones industrial average DJIA,
5% advance for S&P 500 SPX index,
and a 3.4% increase for the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
so far in 2021. Meanwhile, Ether tokens are up 140% in the year to date.
There are concerns that rising inflation as the U.S. economy kicks back from the COVID-19 pandemic, amid vaccine releases and fiscal support packages, has also helped spur bitcoin growth, experts say say.
Bitcoin bulls have long been the focus of printing money from central banks and concerns about rich stock valuation are other reasons for the rise in digital assets.
With that in mind, some are betting that the next big climb for bitcoin could be towards $ 100,000.
“If you consider how many asset managers and sales investors are afraid that the current financial system will fail them, and that a small proportion of them go on to even 5% of their portfolio invested in Bitcoin, $ 100,000 per Bitcoin is a very conservative estimate, ”Sergey Nazarov, co – founder of Chainlink, a blockchain campaign, wrote in a note on Saturday.
All that said, nascent bitcoin could still be in danger of falling to $ 0 if governments crack down on it, even though several central banks are experimenting with digital currencies, and interest might emerge.
The next development in cryptos for mainstream markets may be the original public offering expected by Coinbase Global Inc.’s digital asset trading platform. COIN,
which could be a new attraction tool for the wider market.