In brief
- Bitcoin's price enters unprecedented territory as it reaches 100 days above $10,000.
- The previous record above $10,000 was 62 days, set between December 2017 and January 2018.
- During this run, Bitcoin has attracted several institutional investors.
The price of Bitcoin has now held above the $10,000 mark for 100 days running, as the cryptocurrency’s price moves up to even greater highs. This comes on the back of new interest by major corporations, such as MicroStrategy, Square and PayPal.
“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, told Decrypt.
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin’s current price is $14,412. This constitutes a 5.8% increase in the previous 24 hours, and a 9.4% increase during the last week.
The uptrend is clear over longer stretches of time, too. At the start of this year, Bitcoin was valued at $7,199. This represents a 50% increase so far this year.
Bitcoin has only had a few runs above $10,000. For a while, the longest record was a 62-day run between December 2017 and January 2018, when Bitcoin rose to reach $20,000.
On September 29, 2020, Bitcoin set a new record of 63 consecutive days of opening and closing the trading day with a value above $10,000. Today, that record has extended to 100 days.
This impressive run has been explained by Bitcoin’s newfound ability to appeal to large institutional investors, something which was lacking during Bitcoin’s previous runs.
The MicroStrategy Effect
In August and September of this year, business intelligence firm Microstrategy invested a total of $425 million in Bitcoin.
Since then, other major players have jumped on the Bitcoin bandwagon—most notably Square—who invested $50 million on October 8, 2020. The famed cryptocurrency has also benefited from PayPal’s introduction of crypto purchases, which MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor described as “legitimizing” for the cryptocurrency.
These moves—previously dubbed by Deane as the “MicroStrategy effect”—have “driven, and will continue to drive the asset’s trajectory,” he said.
And, reportedly, PayPal is only just getting started.