Most HEXUS readers will be well aware that Bitcoin has been reaching new highs over recent weeks. Very significantly it has a gravitational pull on other crytocurrencies, sparking similar valuation increases in the likes of Ethereum – a major contributing factor to the Ampere and RDNA 2 GPU drought we are currently suffering from.
On Tuesday BTC reached new highs, breaking above US$50,000 (GB£36,000) for the first time in its history. It is a major psychological barrier for BTC to cross, and the continuation of a strong rally that started to gain momentum from approx October 2020. Until that time BTC had coasted along with valuations between about $6k and $10k for months on end.
Current BTC bull run started in October
The big question is not about where it has been but – where is BTC going? Of course, we don't know, but this time around the rally seems to have a much stronger foundation with support shown by major firms like Tesla, Mastercard and PayPal. Those are indeed big hitters but CNBC reports on other leading tech innovators still not seeing the appeal of cryptocurrencies like BTC. For example, it talked to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi last week, who said that the company had been considering but "quickly dismissed" the idea of buying BTC.
While the last 'bubble' was seemly driven almost solely by retail speculation (and lost 80 per cent of its value in subsequent months) this time around there seems to be strong demand from the companies noted above, as well as investment institutions. Some analysts think that we won't see such a spike this time around but nothing goes up or down in a straight line, so there are bound to be drips and valleys on the way. For example the $50,000 milestone just reached looks like it has sparked some degree of sell-off as some investors will have set it as a target price. This makes it a 'resistance point' but once convincingly pushed past the rise can speed along again.
The high seen on Tuesday was $50,584.85. When I started writing 1BTC was about $49,500, but now it has pushed back over $50,000 again. Oh, Then I took a screenshot (directly above) and it was back under $50,000.
Update: Just an hour before this story goes live I've revisited the BTC charts at CoinDesk, and it says that 1BTC reached a high of $51,348 during the last couple of hours. At the time of this update it is $50,957.
