Bitcoin has been on a major run in 2019, as the cryptocurrency has more than doubled in price. It wasn’t that long ago that Bitcoin was trading at $3,200 and now Bitcoin is well over $7,000. This past week has been a great one for Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency surged over 25% and the Bitcoin price has gone up about 40% in the last month. Not only has Bitcoin surged in price, but other cryptocurrencies have gone up as well, with about $25 billion being added to the cryptocurrency market. What is driving this latest Bitcoin surge?
Bitcoin Whales
Some of the major Bitcoin holders, known as whales, moved a huge amount of Bitcoins over the weekend. One of the whales reportedly moved 47,000 Bitcoin worth a reported $343 million dollars. It was reported that Bitcoin whales traded more than 100,000 Bitcoin over the weekend worth more than $670 million dollars. It is worth noting that most of those whales are moving their Bitcoin out of the cryptocurrency exchanges and simply holding them. Many investors are now holding Bitcoin as they expect the price to continue to rise. A leading investment bank last week said that they expect Bitcoin to hit $20,000 in price next year and it appears that many of the major Bitcoin whales are in agreement.
Blockchain Week
Many of the biggest names in the cryptocurrency industry will be in New York this week for Blockchain Week. Some of the people expected in New York for this event include Jay Clayton, chairman of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, Abigail Johnson from Fidelity, Fred Smith from FedEx and Andrew Yang who is running for President in 2020. "As crypto’s true believers gather in New York for Consensus this week, they are counting ever-more household-name companies amongst their number," said Simon Peters, who is an analyst at brokerage eToro. "The possibility of big crypto-related announcements from some of the world’s biggest corporates will be part of what is driving Bitcoin’s price upward.”
Safe Investment
It could be that people are now buying Bitcoin because they see it as a safe investment. The traditional markets continue to get spooked because of the problems between the United States and China. President Trump is hiking tariffs on China goods and China has said they will start to dump U.S. treasuries. What better place to put investment money than into Bitcoin? It is not regulated by any government and there is no question that the price of Bitcoin is on a major upward trend.
Mainstream Market
There has been a lot of negative press surrounding Bitcoin over the years, but recently the cryptocurrency has gotten some good news from a surprising source. The mainstream market is now backing Bitcoin. Fidelity, which is one of the most respected trading firms, announced they will be implementing Bitcoin trading into their platform and that news comes on the heels of E-Trade announcing they will add Bitcoin to their trading platform.
Bitfinex and Binance
It was first thought that the Bitfinex scandal would be bad news for the price of Bitcoin but that has not been the case. The price has rallied in the last month and people have speculated that people are getting out of Tether and into Bitcoin. The same thoughts occurred after hackers stole $40 million of Bitcoin from Binance, but the price of Bitcoin wasn’t hurt by the hacking news. In fact, it has continued to go up. Some industry experts believe that because so many people were against the idea proposed by Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao about rolling back the blockchain, that people now feel more secure about the future of Bitcoin as a safe currency.
What we do know is that more and more people are getting into Bitcoin every day, as the cryptocurrency becomes more popular. Some companies, including leading online sportsbook BookMaker, have been using Bitcoin for years and now most of their customers use Bitcoin for deposits and withdrawals. Check out the latest Bitcoin deposit and withdrawal options at BookMaker today.
