The price of bitcoin surged above $13,000 on Monday where it remained on Tuesday and is likely to stay – or go higher – throughout the week according to investors who are watching the market keenly.
The big price movement marks a fresh 16-month high for the cryptocurrency, which is now 25 percent for the month and 87 percent on a year-to-date basis, according to a Coindesk analysis.
The price increase may have been affected by the activities of a group of investors referred to as whales. A bitcoin whale is a cryptocurrency term that refers to individuals or entities that hold large amounts of bitcoin. Whales hold enough cryptocurrency that they have the potential to manipulate the currency valuations.
On Monday, an on-chain data reported a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet holder moved more than 88,857 BTC – worth roughly $1.15 billion – for a fee of only 0.00027847 BTC, or $3.58. The coins were confirmed in block 654,364 on Oct. 26.
The price of BTC is trading at $13,204 at the time of writing with a 24-hour trading volume of $37,414,212,673 USD. Bitcoin is down 1.59% in the last 24 hours as of Wednesday on Coinmarketcap.com.
“You have to be smoking crack at this point to believe that Bitcoin is going to be less valuable in 10 years than it is today,” said Anthony Pompliano, co-founder Morgan Creek Digital, a hedge fund which specialises in blockchain technology.
The price of bitcoin surged by 5 percent above $13,000 last week on the news that PayPal, the world’s largest payment company, was launching its own cryptocurrency service, allowing users to buy, hold and sell digital currency on its site and applications.
“Our global reach, digital payments expertise, two-sided network, and rigorous security and compliance controls provide us with the opportunity, and the responsibility, to help facilitate the understanding, redemption, and interoperability of these new instruments of exchange,” Schulman said in a statement.
Investors say there is no going back for an anticipated all-time high run reminiscent of the milestone surge recorded in 2017.
“After PayPal‘s news, every major bank is having a meeting about how to support bitcoin. It’s no longer optional,” said chamath Palihapitiya, chairman Virgin Galactic.
