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The digital currency Bitcoin expanded its record-breaking rally on Saturday, starting the year with a surge of more than $ 30,000 for the first time, with more and more traders and investors betting that it’s on its way to a common payment method word.
The price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency traded at $ 33,099 on Saturday, while almost all other markets closed the first weekend in 2021. It was last around 12% at $ 32,883.
Bitcoin has risen more than 300% in 2020, and with the latest leg adding more than 50% since crossing $ 20,000 just two weeks ago.
The blockchain currency has only been around for a decade or so, and by 2020 saw demand from larger U.S. investors grow, attracted by its perceived inflation-hedging characteristics and potential for quick gains, as well as the expectation that it would become a mainstream payments would be method.
Investors have said that the limited supply of bitcoin, produced by so-called ‘mine’ computers that confirm transaction blocks by competing to solve mathematical puzzles, has moved upwards over the past few days.
Some even considered it a safe haven play during the Covid-19 pandemic, similar to gold.
“It is very likely that the asset will eventually reach $ 100,000 per coin,” Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, a global blockchain project, wrote in an email on Saturday. “People have been losing confidence in their government currencies for years, and the monetary policy due to the economic impact of the coronavirus has only accelerated this decline.”
It trades on numerous exchanges, of which Coinbase is the largest, preparing itself to appear on the exchange and becoming the first platform to list on Wall Street.
Several competing cryptocurrencies use similar technology for blockchain, or electronic ledger. Ethereum, the second largest, rose by 465% in 2020 and rose almost 7% on Saturday.