On Wednesday, November 18, 2020, the price of bitcoin has been coasting along at levels not seen since the decentralized currency’s all-time high three years ago in 2017. The cryptocurrency’s market capitalization is currently hovering at around $334 billion today. Likewise, the daily rate of bitcoin issuance during the last three years makes the overall market valuation higher than it was when bitcoin touched $19,600 per coin.
Earlier this morning (EST), bitcoin (BTC) had surpassed the $18k per unit price zone, as the crypto asset has climbed a whopping 54% during the last 30 days. During the last 90 days against the U.S. dollar, BTC is up 53% and over the last 12 months against USD, the cryptocurrency is up a massive 123% to-date.
Three years ago, bitcoin touched an all-time high of $19,600 on Bitstamp, but because of the three years of bitcoin issuance from miners, BTC’s market cap is higher today than it was on December 17, 2017. Today, bitcoin is undoubtedly the best financial vehicle during the last decade, as it has surpassed stocks, equities, commodities, and nearly every asset under the sun.
Crypto is witnessing a watershed moment. For the first time, it is being considered an enduring, fundamentally new asset class by mainstream.#Bitcoin is leading the rally right now, with new money coming in from funds that allocate a small percent of their holdings to crypto.
— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) November 17, 2020
For example, 12 years ago back in July 2010, a single BTC was swapping for $0.08 per unit. This means with BTC above the $18k handle (or just below), the crypto asset has increased in value over 22 million percent since 2010. If a person waited even five years later, in 2015 the price of BTC was swapping between $200-300 per coin. An investment in bitcoin at this level (2015) would give an investor 7,100% with BTC exchange rates at the $18k mark.
Data shows that at the current price levels, any person with a touch over 55 BTC has crossed the millionaire zone. Statistics show that there are 664,900 unique addresses with anywhere between 1-10 BTC and 2.3 million unique addresses with 0.1 to 1 BTC each. Stats from bitinfocharts.com also indicates there are 25,810 unique addresses that own a million dollars worth of bitcoin. Beyond those million-dollar whales, 3,442 addresses contain $10 million in BTC today as well.
Governments will start blaming #Bitcoin for hyperinflation as their soft currency price of BTC continues to rise as their citizens try to escape the economic fallout around the corner. Bitcoin will get banned in many countries over the next 12 months, but it will be too late…
— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) November 18, 2020
Meanwhile, as bitcoin (BTC) continues to grow in value, the crypto assets inflation rate or rate of issuance continues to drop lower. Unlike Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chair who noted the U.S. central bank would let inflation run hotter than usual, Satoshi’s system is predictable and mathematically secure.
In fact, worldwide most central banks claim the financial institutions keep the inflation rate target around 2%, but there are a few lenient countries that reference rates as high as 4%. And even though central banks claim 2% is the reference mark globally, shadowstats.com statistics reveal the real rate could be as high as 10%.
On February 24, 2020, just before the third BTC reward halving, the decentralized currency’s inflation rate was hovering around 3.86%. Today, that metric is a lot lower, and continues to sink as the current bitcoin (BTC) inflation rate is only 2.71% at the time of publication.
After BTC busted through the $18k zone, the crypto asset analyst from Etoro, Simon Peters, said that “bitcoin will now be setting its sights on the all-time high of $20,000” in a note to investors.
“Three years on, there are a whole host of factors contributing to the current price rise, including a massive influx of investors from large scale institutions such as listed investment trusts, pension schemes and university endowment funds, which shows how far bitcoin has come,” Peters wrote on Wednesday morning. “Data sets that analyse the health of bitcoin by looking at data from the blockchain, the technology underpinning crypto, are also reporting strong signals that justify the recent price rises.”
The digital currency analyst added:
The $20,000 level is clearly the next target for bitcoin. Should we surpass that this year, which I believe is possible, then we are into uncharted territory as sentiment remains positive. Bitcoin’s maturity, evidenced by the diversity of its investors and extensive and wide-ranging data sets, means that we can say with some trepidation, ‘this time is different’.
With bitcoin (BTC) prices riding so high, this week crypto proponents have been wondering whether or not an ‘altcoin season’ is coming around the bend. So far, with BTC’s dominance levels at 68.7%, it doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for now.
However, there are a few notable altcoins moving northbound in value too like the second largest blockchain in terms of market cap Ethereum. The popular cryptocurrency analyst on Twitter called @intocryptoverse believes at some point ETH prices could top $10k per coin.
“If ETH continues on in this manner and is, in fact, one market cycle behind BTC, then we will peak at approximately 1,000% above the fair value in a few years,” the trader predicted on Twitter. “If this happens in say, 2023, then this could put a theoretical peak just shy of a modest $10k per ETH,” @intocryptoverse concluded.
What do you think about bitcoin crossing $18k and the possibility of ethereum touching the $10k handle? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, @intocryptoverse, Twitter, Bitcoin Wisdom,
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