Bitcoin Price Hits $19,000—Threatening to Break All-Time High

The price of Bitcoin has reached over $19,000 today for the first time since mid-December 2017. Since then, it briefly fell below the milestone mark before breaking back through it. Bitcoin's price has now reached $19,100.

The cryptocurrency is up 1.5% on the day, according to CoinMarketCap—and 13% in the last week.

“Back in March, I predicted that BTC could reach $50,000 by end-2020 and now there is increasing evidence of that upward trend. Markets like round numbers—Bitcoin passed $16,000, then $18,000 in a matter of days. The next stop is $20,000,” Antoni Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner at crypto platform Nexo, told Decrypt.

He added that with companies such as MicroStrategy, Square and PayPal announcing their support for cryptocurrencies, “$50,000 by the end of this year is not at all unlikely.”

“This will be a record not driven by frenzy, but by the big, forward-thinking, finance and technology-savvy institutions that will push crypto into the mainstream,” Trenchev noted.

Bitcoin trading volumes are starting to pick up too. Last week on Wednesday, as Bitcoin broke the $18,000 mark, volumes rose considerably from $20-30 billion to $49 billion. Yesterday, volumes dropped somewhat to $42 billion—but are still higher than usual.

As Bitcoin’s price grows, so has its market capitalization. As Decrypt reported, the cryptocurrency recently overtook payments giant Mastercard in that regard and was placed at the 16th spot among the world’s top assets.

There are a number of factors driving this latest rally. These include investment from large companies such as MicroStrategy and Square, along with support from payments giant PayPal. Plus, while the demand is rising, Bitcoin's supply is being squeezed due to its halving (as less Bitcoin is now being produced on a daily basis).

In late 2017, amid the crypto’s historic bull run, Bitcoin's registered all-time high amounted to roughly $20,089 per coin on December 17. Soon after that, the sharp downward trend began that pushed BTC down to around $4,000 at the end of 2018.

"Retails have not fully jumped back into crypto again like the institutions had so it feels more like 2016 than 2017 right now. We definitely will see BTC break above $20K soon to make new all-time-highs likely by Xmas 2020,” noted Kory Hoang, CEO and co-founder of stablecoin platform Stably, adding, “Once more retails and mainstream companies adopt crypto and blockchain technology, there's no telling how high BTC can go.”

And yet—if 2017 is anything to go by—its price can come back down even quicker.

Update: This article has been updated with the latest price figures after the Bitcoin price surged higher above $19,000.