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Bitcoin Price Blitzes Beyond $2,200; USD Markets Reign

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:56 PM
Samburaj Das
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:56 PM

The rampaging run continues as bitcoin price soars above $2,220 to new uncharted heights led by trading in US markets.

“Bitcoin Price Could Leap over $2000 in 2017” read a CCN.com headline citing Danish lender Saxo Bank’s prediction which claimed bitcoin’s price could rise by 165%, due to Trump’s presidency. At the time, bitcoin was trading around $760. They called it.

Seven days to the year after the first symbolic bitcoin transaction where an American programmer paid 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John’s pizzas, bitcoin has marked the occasion by surging to a new all-time high of $2,238, an average across the world’s bitcoin trading markets. That figure is up 15% on the day and more than 60% in May, which began with a then all-time high of $1,400.

Trading is led by the BTC-USD market, which saw over a third of the world’s bitcoin traded over a 24-hour period with nearly $300 million in bitcoin in USD volumes alone. Asia’s major trading markets in China, Japan and Korea, in that order, totaled above 45% of world’s trading volume.

There is the looming sense of heightened arbitrage spurring trading activity due to the price difference between markets such as Japan and the United States. Current data from San Francisco-based Coinbase shows bitcoin trading to the dollar at $2,218 while the value of a single bitcoin in Tokyo-based exchange bitFlyer, Japan’s largest exchange by volume, is at $2,517, over a $300 premium.

Recent legislative developments in Japan has made the country a friendlier place for bitcoin, whipping up a frenzied demand for the cryptocurrency. Today, a Japanese airline became the first in the country to accept bitcoin as payments for tickets.

At the time of publishing, bitcoin is trading at $2,210 on Coinbase, finding a possible quick correction after having reached a dizzying high of $2,290.

Meanwhile, data from CoinMarketCap shows a significant sell-off from Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP token into buying Bitcoins over a 24-hour trading period.

The sell-off is a minor blip for both Ethereum and Ripple, both of which have contributed to significant gains to a thriving cryptocurrency ecosystem. Ethereum has doubled since trading at $80 at the beginning of May to now see $200 at touching distance. Ripple has risen some 60x over the past 2 months with newly laid out plans to become ‘more decentralized than bitcoin.’

Further, US stocks have plunged lately and the US dollar weakens amid Trump’s actions  last week.  As ever during times of political uncertainty, gold has gained. As has bitcoin, a digital store of value for some, a currency for others and both for everyone else.

Featured image from Shutterstock.