Is bitcoin price reverting back to its old ways?

Within a span of 24 hours, the cryptocurrency breezed past the $10,000 mark on Saturday and briefly meandered beyond $11,000, before settling back into the $10,000 range. As of this writing, it was trading at $10,729.87, roughly unchanged from its price 24 hours ago. A day earlier, Bitcoin was changing hands at $9,859.61.

Such schizophrenic price movements were common in the latter half of 2017, when the original cryptocurrency was in the midst of a bull run that culminated in it touching $20,000. Bitcoin price jumped by $10,000 in less than three weeks then. It remains to be seen whether it will repeat the frothy behavior this time around .  

Bitcoin’s sudden price movement helped cryptocurrency markets add $33 billion to their overall market capitalization in less than 24 hours. As of this writing, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrency markets is $325.8 billion. Minus Bitcoin, the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies is $135 billion.

What Caused the Bitcoin Price Jump?

As with everything Bitcoin, it is hard to pinpoint a single reason for Bitcoin’s price surge. Reasons vary. Some say it was news of Facebook’s crypto offering. ““At this point, most people have heard of Bitcoin, and there are millions who “get it” and believe it will soar to become the equivalent of gold in the digital age…News like Facebook will only help fuel the fire,” said Yonatan Sela, co-founder and chief business officer at Props, an open source platform for cryptocurrencie  

Others point to the market’s increased maturity due to institutional participation. “The market has matured greatly since the last time Bitcoin crossed $10,000. This run is far more justified given the current level of adoption – the Bitcoin blockchain has remained consistently above 3.5 transactions per second since January,” explained Mati Greenspan, analyst with eToro, a research firm.

Regardless of the actual reason, there is a real possibility that Bitcoin could reach further highs. “Now that BTC has reached the $10k mark, we could see all-time highs in short order, as attention in developed economies focuses back on BTC as an alternative to the Modern Monetary Theory approach taken by most central banks and policymakers,” said Mike Alfred, CEO of Digital Assets Data. According to him, bitcoin price could breach $50,000 and reach as high as $60,000. “…(I) think we could see prices that high sooner rather than later,” he said.