The price of one bitcoin now goes for N12.5 million in Nigeria on the day the largest cryptocurrency by capitalisation exchanged hands on the global market at $26,000 for the first time ever.
In view of that price, investors who bought the crypto asset in March when the price was about N4 million, its lowest this year, would have made three times their initial investment, representing about 300 percent returns.
The price surge continues a surge in which the leading cryptocurrency has been breaking its own records after it erased on 16 December the much-anticipated milestone of $20,000 recorded in 2017.
It crossed $25,000 on Christmas Day (December 25) only to set a new record of $26,368 on Boxing Day (December 26). As of the time of writing this article, one bitcoin was sold for $26,473 on Saturday night on the Coinmarketcap.
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According to analysts at Coindesk the surge is being driven by new institutional investors among whom are Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital which invested $25 million in December; MassMutual which staked $100 million; and Guggeheim which now has about 10 percent of its $5 billion macro funds in bitcoin.
According to data from Bybt.com, more than $131 million worth of Bitcoin futures contracts were liquidated in the last 48 hours. As long as the derivatives market continues to see an increase in sellers, the probability of more short squeezes in the near future remains high.
