• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Bitcoin erases 2017 ATH in Nigeria by over N1m as price jumps above $18,000

Bitcoin

The world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin seen its price skyrocket above $18,000 as it races to erase the all-time high of $20,000 set in December 2017.

BusinessDay findings show that at the N359 per dollar exchange rate recorded in December 2017 and the bitcoin peak of $19,140 (Coinmarketcap) in the same period to bring the price to N6,871,260 means the all-time high has already been surpassed by November 2020.

While the global price is at $18,197 as of Wednesday afternoon while on the Luno exchange Nigerians are exchanging it for N8,692,191, representing a difference of N1,820,931.

Further insight from Luno also shows that the bitcoin price is roughly only 10 percent away from the 2017 milestone. Apart from Nigeria, countries experiencing high inflation like Angola, Venezuela; Turkey; Brazil; Zambia; and Sudan have all surpassed the 2017 all-time high.

Read more Investors who bought bitcoin at $6400 in March rake in over 100% RoI in November

Some analysts say the bitcoin market may not need to wait till December to hit $20,000. Already the coin set an all-time high when its market capitalisation hit $334 billion on Tuesday smashing the record it set on December 17, 2017.

The surge this year has come on the heels of broader acceptance from global institutions like Fidelity Investments which launched a Bitcoin fund in August and PayPal Holding announcing in October it would allow customers to access cryptocurrencies. Many notable individual investors have also in recent times openly declared themselves fans of the cryptocurrency. For example, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the top five billionaires in Mexico disclosed on Tuesday that 10 percent of his portfolio is in bitcoin.

“The price is going up because everyone wants to buy and nobody wants to sell,” Anthony Pompliano, co-founder of Morgan Creek Capital, said.

The difference between 2017 and 2020 bull run, according to some analysts, is in the fundamentals. Nathaniel Whitemore, an analyst on Coindesk said the 2017-2018 bitcoin bull run was largely a result of mania for initial coin offer (ICO) and “relentless get-richism” that was short term in its outlook. The 2020 run is driven by a new set of actors and a new way of thinking.

It should also be noted that in 2017 price peaks coincided with bitcoin flows into exchanges, but in 2020 the rally is occurring in an unprecedented period of net withdrawals from exchanges, as data from Glassnode showed.