By
Steve Muchoki
April 23rd, 2024
In just 24-hours, Bitcoin surges by 20% or 2.7K and hits a new all-time high above $15,000.
Well, it seems nothing can stop Bitcoin at this moment as the cryptocurrency continues to surge ahead and now, at the press time, the most valued cryptocurrency is trading at a new all-time high of $15518.70, according to CoinMarketCap. Every new target for Bitcoin seems like a cake-walk.
In just past 24 hours, Bitcoin price has surged by a whopping 19% from an intraday low of $12789.80 to the above-mentioned intraday high. The market cap of Bitcoin alone has crossed $250 billion with the overall cryptocurrency market cap crossing $400 billion for the first time ever. The 24-hours volumes are just close to $14 billion as Bitcoin enthusiasts and investors seem to have gone completely crazy.
There are multiple reasons for Bitcoin enthusiasts and investors to cheer up in this moment. One is the fact that Bitcoin futures by two largest derivate marketplaces in U.S. – CBOE and CME Group – are just around the corner. Next week onwards traders will be able to participate in open markets for trading Bitcoin futures and a lot of liquidity is expected to hit Bitcoin.
As said by Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, the current surge in Bitcoin buying is also “motivated by ”fear of missing out“ and greed.”
Another important reason is that, in a major breakthrough of solving the scalability issue of Bitcoin, the Lightning developers have achieved successful results in several tests like live transactions and interoperability between different implementations on Lightning network, compatibility between different software solutions etc. However, this is just one phase of the project, but it certainly paves a path of future development regarding scalability. As a result, it brings us much closer to the public launch of the Lightning network.
The interesting fact to be seen is that Bitcoin has huge popularity with a huge number of buyers from South Korea. On the local exchanges of South Korea, Bitcoin is trading at a premium of $17,700 for one BTC/KRW pair.
While commenting on the latest unstoppable surge in the Bitcoin price, Shane Chanel, from Sydney-based ASR Wealth Advisers said “Bitcoin now seems like a charging train with no brakes. There is an unfathomable amount of new participants piling into the cryptocurrency market.” However, by putting a sign of caution at this moment, he said: “Once the hype slows down, we will most certainly see some sort of correction.”
After the latest approval-nod from Commodity Futures Trading Commission to start Bitcoin futures contracts has spurred some mounting concerns in the finance industry. The Futures Industry Association – a group of the world’s biggest brokerage firms, have criticized this decision claiming that such contracts are being rushed through without properly weighing the associated risks of such contracts.
The association said, “A more thorough and considered process would have allowed for a robust public discussion among clearing member firms, exchanges and clearing houses.”
There is no doubt to the fact that there has been a huge growing interest within retail investors and their acceptance to the world of virtual digital currencies. However, there have been experts constantly warning at every rise that Bitcoin could probably pose a risk to financial stability and the fears of a bubble exploding have been growing.