The price of bitcoin has hit a high of over $15,000 for the first time since January 2018 and it is expected to break the all-time high of $20,000 it reached in 2017 before the end of the year.
While different categories of investors are giddy with excitement, it is perhaps those who took a position in March 2020 that will be on cloud nine when they look at the current price of the digital currency. The price of bitcoin dropped to $6,483 in March as COVID-19 lockdown began to take effect and investors felt the impact on their investment.
However, bitcoin is exchanging hands at $15,435.93 on Friday afternoon, November 6, 2020, on the Coinmarketcap. For the investors who stuck with buying bitcoin at the low of $6,483, it means more than a hundred percent return on investment with profit nearly hitting $9,000 in less than 9 months.
To put it in context, Nigeria’s local currency, naira was trading against the dollar at N364 in March, which means the price of bitcoin at $6,483 was at N2,359,812. With the price hitting as high as $15,937 on Friday 6 November, investors who have held on to their coin would have made N6,056,060 which is an N3,696,248 difference from their capital of N2,359,812 at the official rate of N380. When you convert it with the rate at the parallel market at N460, the difference could go as high as N4 million at N7.2 million. In essence, investors who sell at parallel market price could make nearly 200 percent return on investment.
“In Nigeria, there is no need to wait for $19,783.06 cos Bitcoin has broken its previous Naira all-time high that topped at N7,220,819.90,” Julius Jesse, a marketing expert tweeted. “Today we hit N7,388,468.70. Some exchanges are selling as high as N7,540,000.”
As of press time on Saturday, the price of bitcoin is trading at $15,266.56 on the Coinmarketcap index.
According to Luno, a global cryptocurrency exchange, the price of bitcoin has now sat above the $10,000 mark for over 100 days, and it is expected to continue to rise even greater highs.
“People have made a big deal about the fact that this is bitcoin’s 100th day above $10,000, but the reality is that for many bitcoin proponents it was only ever a milestone to pass on what is now, in my view, an inevitable and unstoppable upwards trend,” Jason Deane, bitcoin analyst at Quantum Economics said.
Bitcoin was valued at $7,199 in January 2020, representing an increase of 50 percent so far this year. Bitcoin’s only had a few runs above $10,000. For a while, the longest record was a 62-day streak from December 2017 and January 2018, when bitcoin rose to $20,000.
Bitcoin also set a new record of 63 consecutive days of opening and closing with a value above $10,000 on 29 September. Analysts say the remarkable run was due to its newfound appeal to institutional investors, something not seen during its previous runs.
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