Bitcoin breaks $60,000 for the first time since November 2021 β will it make a run to the all-time high?
Bitcoin has surpassed the $60,000 mark for the first time in more than two years as investors pile into the cryptocurrency.
The digital currency was trading at $61,870 in Britain at 5:30 p.m., up 8.4 percent for the day, taking its gains to 40 percent this year.
It hasn’t changed hands at these levels since November 2021, when it was trading at an all-time high of $69,000.
Some analysts now believe Bitcoin is on track to reach $100,000 this summer.
However, others remain skeptical and predict that a crash is just as likely, while regulators continue to warn that anyone who buys crypto could end up with nothing.
Crypto Rally: Bitcoin hit a high of $57,462 yesterday and is up 10% this week and 35% this year
Walid Koudmani, analyst at broker XTB, said nothing is certain in the world of crypto.
βIt seems difficult that the price of bitcoin will almost double through June, as markets generally tend to see corrections on the way up or down,β he said.
‘The interesting thing for the crypto market is that although it seems unlikely, it is impossible to rule out.’
This week’s rally started on Monday when software company MicroStrategy said it bought 3,000 bitcoin tokens for around Β£120 million, taking its holdings to more than Β£9 billion.
MicroStrategy is considered the largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin in the world and its latest plunge was seen as a vote of confidence in the broader crypto sector.
Greta Yuan, head of research at digital asset platform VDX, said the market was “encouraged by crypto bulls like Micro-Strategy” – with the price of smaller rival Ether also rising after the announcement.
Yuan added that crypto also benefited from a wave of investment in exchange-traded funds linked to its price β Spot bitcoin ETFs β following approval from US regulators.
At the end of January, the Security and Exchange Commission gave the green light to 11 bitcoin ETFs, including funds from Wall Street giants BlackRock and Fidelity.
Previously, the only way to buy bitcoin in the US was through an exchange, which can be an intimidating process and involves technical aspects such as wallets and keys.
Bitcoin could rise even further this year due to another so-called ‘halving’ event.
This is when the reward for bitcoin mining is cut in half. This usually happens every four years and is intended to delay the release of the coin.