After an uncertain period during the weekend where both the bears and the bulls tried pulling the market their way, the demand overpowered the skeptics and Bitcon’s price reached yet another all time high at $1935 on Bitstamp. Bitcoin’s market cap has also reached an all time high valued at $31 billion, more than double that of Ripple.
There are many elements at play currently some are helping the price move up, while others are suppressing it. In short, Japan’s adoption of the cryptocurrency, the recent WannaCry ransomware debacle, and increasing interest in cryptocurrency are all beneficial to Bitcoin’s price growth. On the other hand, Bitcoin’s loss of dominance, the scaling debate, and the sheer amount of unconfirmed transactions are all detrimental to the market and are holding the price back.
Looking at the breakout, along with the steady volume, the next stop for Bitcoin’s price seems to be $2000. It looks like political turmoil in the US which caused stock markets to plummet as a result of Trump’s administration is another important driving force behind the latest price craze.
President Trump tried to intervene with an investigation of alleged Russian meddling in last year’s election. This caused investors to be nervous about the stock market’s stability and Trump’s latest stunt of firing Comey created a turbulent weekend.
However, it looks like stocks have rebound after a meeting with the former FBI chief on Wednesday which confirmed that the investigation into Russian ties is not over by any means.
Investors were likely relieved, she said, by Wednesday night’s appointment of former FBI chief Robert Mueller to investigate alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. -Reuters
While the stock market has rebound, Bitcoin’s price has only kept on rising. It is evident there is a demand for safe haven assets such as cryptocurrencies especially during such times of political uncertainty.
Furthermore, it is interesting to see that the recent world’s largest ransomware attack WannaCry didn’t seem to have a negative effect on the price at all. In fact, the opposite happened. All the media attention directed at the ransomware actually brought more attention to Bitcoin. As investors saw Bitcoin’s true potential as a safe way to store funds and as a pesudo-anonymous payment network. During these times of high surveillance and privacy violations it is no surprise that people are looking for alternative methods to store wealth.
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