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Newsflash: Bitcoin Price Continues Sprint Towards $700

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:49 PM
Samburaj Das
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:49 PM

Bitcoin price continues its bullish swell as it surged to a two-year high over the weekend amidst increased demand from new Chinese investors and expectations of a further surge ahead of the halving event next month.

The Bitstamp Price Index (BPI) struck a high of $693.97 in USD trading today, a milestone that represents a high in over 28 months. The last time bitcoin was trading at these prices was on February 7th, 2014, when the BPI witnessed trading at $703.

At the time of publication, bitcoin is trading at $690.

BPI Bitstamp 13062016 690

In China, bitcoin price also struck a high, trading at 4,270 yuan, a record over the past two years. The number also represents a 50% increase over the past 20 days and is a testament to Chinese investors seeing the cryptocurrency as a viable store of value.

One Chinese publication, the Shanghai Daily, cites an increase in new Chinese investors, coupled with an easing investment environment as prominent factors behind the rise in bitcoin price. Notably, investors are pulling money out of other markets to buy bitcoin.

Speaking to the publication, Du Jun, co-founder of Beijing-based bitcoin exchange Huobi.com which sees daily trade volume exceed 5 billion yuan (approx. $759 million) stated:

The trade volume and price both surged in recent weeks, with many new registered investors coming every day, many pouring money from the stock and housing markets.

Yuan has seen depreciation over the past two months and the drop has only furthered in recent weeks in a stagnating Chinese economy. Forecasts are down and a weakening yuan has only pushed investors to trigger a wave of capital outflows away from the country, with bitcoin among the biggest beneficiaries.

Furthermore, industry executives also see the backing of blockchain technology by the banking industry and global venture capital firms as reasons for the increased attention on bitcoin, a cryptocurrency which is powered by its public blockchain.

Speaking to the media, Jack C. Liu, chief strategy officer at OKCoin, China’s largest bitcoin exchange which sees some 90% of the global bitcoin trading volume stated:

The halving of the supply of Bitcoin is attracting many retail investors. More broadly, we continue to see follow-through from the blockchain hype cycle translating to interest in bitcoin the asset.

Bitcoin’s strong run also sees the cryptocurrency amass a $10 billion market cap, gaining over a billion dollars in under a day from yesterday to now stand at $10.782 billion. The last time the grandest cryptocurrency of them all peaked beyond $10 billion in market capitalization was on Feb 5th, 2014 when it stood at $10.152 billion.

BTC Market Cap
Chart from Coinmarketcap

For a live Bitcoin Price chart, click here.

All time references are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Featured image from Shutterstock.