The value of the combined bitcoin and cryptocurrency market has surged to over $1 trillion as prices rise across the board.
The bitcoin price has climbed to almost $38,000 per bitcoin, with the total value of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency now nearing $700 billion—and pushing bitcoin up the charts of largest global assets.
The surge over $1 trillion comes as smaller cryptocurrencies, including ethereum, Ripple’s XRP, cardano and stellar, all make significant gains.
The bitcoin price has has been climbing since October, pushed higher by a wave of institutional … [+]
Barcroft Media via Getty Images
The latest bitcoin price rally, with bitcoin up 7% over the last 24 hours, comes after the Democrats won close runoff elections in Georgia, giving the party control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 2015.
Many expect Democrat control of the Senate will mean further stimulus cash for pandemic-struck businesses and individuals in a market already awash with stimulus money and pent-up demand.
“Bitcoin set another all-time high around $37,500 before beginning a cautious correction,” Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro senior financial analyst, said via email, pointing to “generous economic stimulus and printing of new dollars” as “the basis for broad asset diversification among institutional investors.”
“Currently, the dynamics of the first cryptocurrency, as well as the entire market, does not appear to be in the final stage of a bubble, to be followed by an immense crash. In recent weeks, we have seen a cautious but regular rise to new highs. Corrections are occurring, but bitcoin quickly goes through consolidation phases and continues to rise. The benchmark cryptocurrency is now denying the very notion of being overbought. It is big capital that seems to be making the price dynamic more moderate and consistent.”
Last year, a number of high-profile investors, led by the famed Paul Tudor Jones, began to name bitcoin as an emerging inflation hedge, using to it protect against what they see as the damage being done to the stability of the dollar by unprecedented government spending and money-printing.
This support helped institutional investors and Wall Street giants soften their sceptical view of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
“Bitcoin has once again rocketed to an all-time high,” Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer at bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, said in emailed comments, adding “the scramble of institutional investors into the fray with orders to buy bitcoin is a stark recognition of the quantum leap that bitcoin technology represents.”
The bitcoin price has rallied over the last 24 hours as the Democrats took control of the U.S. … [+]
Coinbase
The cryptocurrency market push over $1 trillion comes as XRP, the digital token created by the company Ripple and the fourth largest cryptocurrency by value, added a staggering 30% over the last 24 hours.
The price of Ripple’s XRP has been on a roller coaster over the last month after a late November surge was wiped out by a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission against Ripple, casting doubt over XRP’s future.
Elsewhere, cardano and stellar, the sixth and ninth largest cryptocurrencies by value, have added around 20% and 40% respectively over the last 24 hour trading period.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, and litecoin, the fifth, added around 5%.
