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The digital currency Bitcoin widened its record concentration on Saturday, starting the year with a rise of more than $ 30,000 for the first time, with more and more traders and investors opting to become a major payment method.
The price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency traded up to $ 33,099 on Saturday, with almost all other markets closed during the first weekend of 2021. It rose about 12%, to $ 32,883.
Bitcoin advanced more than 300% in 2020 and, with the last stage higher, has added more than 50% since it crossed $ 20,000 just two weeks ago.
The blockchain has only been around for a decade or so, and by 2020 it has seen an increase in demand from larger U.S. investors, attracted by its perceived inflation hedging qualities and its potential for profit. fast, as well as by the expectations that it would become a major payment. method.
Investors claimed that the limited supply of bitcoins produced by so-called “mining” computers that validate competing transaction blocks to solve mathematical puzzles – has helped drive upward movements in recent days.
Some also saw it as a work of refuge during the gold-like Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is very likely that the asset will end up going above $ 100,000 per coin,” Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, a global blockchain project, wrote in an email on Saturday. “People have been losing faith in their government currencies steadily for years and monetary policies resulting from the economic impact of the coronavirus have only accelerated this decline.”
It is traded on numerous stock exchanges, the largest of which is Coinbase, which is preparing to go public and become the first such platform to appear on Wall Street.
The cryptocurrencies of several competitors use technology similar to blockchain or e-book. Ethereum, the second-largest, gained 465% in 2020 and rose nearly 7% on Saturday.