TL;DR Breakdown
- Bitcoin price reaches all-time high of $29,629
- The crypto asset has over $500 billion in market capitalization
Talk about starting the year the same way you want it to end, Bitcoin just put its best foot forward after its price reached an all-time high of $29,629 which is only a few hundred dollars away from $30,000.
Last year, Bitcoin price almost quadrupled after it had sold for less than $6000 as of last March. However, since then, especially during December, the value of the coin has appreciated massively as it kept breaking its own record.
To put this in perspective, the coin price surged by over 300% within 2020 alone.
One of the reasons attributed to this massive rise in price of the digital asset is the role institutional investors played in a broader and wider acceptance of BTC as a viable means of investment and also a valid store of wealth.
In 2020, the economy suffered due to the outbreak of the pandemic that grounded almost all human activities. To cushion the economic effect of the virus, some governments like that of the United States decided to pump a stimulus package into the economy which is the same thing as printing more money. This led to fear among economic analysts who believed this would lead to massive devaluation.
So, in response to this, institutional investors like Grayscale, Microstrategy, Square etc began to buy BTC as a store of wealth and as an investment tool.
PayPal entrance into the crypto market also played a role. The entrance of the financial institution opened the crypto industry to over 300 million active users who can now trade in crypto assets like Bitcoin too.
Bitcoin market cap makes it one of the biggest companies in the world
Presently, Bitcoin market capitalisation is above $500 billion, placing it above huge financial institutions like Visa and MasterCard.
At the current rate, the coin could also be able to usurp other huge institutions like Alibaba, Tencent, Berkshire Hathaway etc on the ranking.
