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Unstoppable Bitcoin hits $25,000, up 400% since March

Dubai - The breathtaking rally of Bitcoin, which commands about 66 per cent of the global cryptocurrency market, have been driven by institutional investors

Bitcoin set a new all-time high of $25,005.53 on Saturday before falling back to $24,971.23, up 6.28 per cent on the day, marking an eye-popping 400 per cent jump over the past eight months

The leading cryptocurrency, which broke $24,000 just a few days ago, continued its torrid run, undeterred by a torrent of dismal warnings and alarm bells sounded by adversaries including Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed “Dr Doom” for his famously pessimistic predictions, and former White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn about its unavoidable collapse.

The breathtaking rally of Bitcoin, which commands about 66 per cent of the global cryptocurrency market, have been driven by institutional investors, including Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ( $25 million December); MassMutual ($100 million in December); and Guggenheim (up to 10 per cent per cent of its $5 billion macro fund), analysts said.

Recently, leading online payment platform PayPal said its 350 million users would soon be able to deposit bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in their accounts and spend it at 26 million merchants.

Daniel Gouldman, CEO of crypto-banking platform operator Ternio, said PayPal’s endorsement may help crypto go mainstream

Since PayPal announced in March this year about enabling its account holders to use Bitcoin, the value of the cryptocurrency has shot up from $5,000 to $25,000, marking a mind-blowing 400 per cent surge over eight months

Analysts believe that given the digital currency’s sky-rocketing trends, its value could as well be touching $27,000 within a few weeks. ZebPay, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has predicted that Bitcoin’s value could hit over $135,000 by 2030.

Adversaries of the crypto currency argue that there’s no intrinsic value to be found in Bitcoin when compared to stocks, bonds, real estate, and other income-generating assets.

Launched in 2009, Bitcoin became the first cryptocurrency to adopt a decentralised network for transactions based on block-chains. This exempts the currency from central bank policies and regulations, thereby deriving its value through a process called ‘mining.’ Bitcoins can be transferred using peer-to-peer transactions, the data record-keeping of which are done by blockchains.

— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com