Bitcoin hit $19,000 on Tuesday for the first time in nearly three years, homing in on its all-time high of just under $20,000, Reuters informed.
The world’s most popular cryptocurrency was last up 3.2% at $18,958. Bitcoin has gained nearly 40% in November alone and is up around 160% this year.
Fuelling its gains have been demand for risk-on assets amid unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, hunger for assets perceived as resistant to inflation, and expectations that cryptocurrencies would win mainstream acceptance.
On Friday, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock’s chief investment officer, Rick Rieder, said on CNBC that bitcoin could take the place of gold to a large extent because crypto is “so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around,” CoinDesk writes.
The market capitalization of bitcoin also hit its all time high this week to about $329 billion, according to data provided by crypto analytic firm CryptoQuant.
According to Guy Hirsch, managing director for US at eToro, 2020’s bull market “debunks” the idea that bitcoin is a “Tulip Bubble” because “tulips never had a second wave of buying the same way bitcoin has.”
With retail on-ramp platforms including PayPal and CashApp being more prevalent in 2020 than 2017, bitcoin’s price could break $20,000 “in the not-too-distant” future, Hirsch added, predicting that the retail investors will kick in the market and propel the price.
All but two of the other coins from the CoinDesk 20 including ether and XRP (XRP, +37.77%) have also been in green in the past 24 hours.
With increased institutional investors entering the bitcoin market, as well as miners not liquidating their positions, “it appears likely that price will continue to rise,” according to a newsletter by CryptoQuant on Nov. 13.
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