Bitcoin (BTC) is halfway its fourth major price rally for the year and is approaching a new record high, with some market observers predicting this surge could be different from ones that have come before.
The cryptocurrency was changing hands near the $60,000 level Thursday – climbing by more than 1,000% since March 2020 and just $1,500 off the all-time peak it reached on March 14 this year.
Bullishness looks to be forming in the BTC options listed on the Deribit Exchange, with bitcoin trading just 4.7% short of a new record peak.
Bitcoin up 5.6% this week
Bitcoin is currently trading near the $59,800 level at press time, indicating a 5.6% rise on the week, figures by CoinDesk 20 data show.
The crypto traded 0.53% lower at $59,354.37 over the past 24 hours. It notched an all-time high of $61,683 last month.
“Bitcoin has been on an epic rally since October last year. Nearly week-on-week, the price has been breaking through barrier after barrier, hitting new highs,” The Independent quoted Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory company deVere, as saying.
New research from on-chain data platform Glassnode shows continued growth in bitcoin held between one month and six months, suggesting strong conviction behind its recent price surge.
According to CoinDesk, traders are positioning for a solid rally in the short-term through deep out-of-the-money calls like the one at $80,000.
PayPal, digital yuan propel bitcoin
Bitcoin’s recent gains came after PayPal said it would allow its U.S. clients to use their digital currency holdings to pay at millions of online merchants around the world.
Meanwhile, interest in China’s digital yuan project could in part be propelled by the increasing price of bitcoin, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), even as bitcoin is effectively banned in the world’s second-biggest economy.
China’s central bank sees it as a way to promote cashless payments. The digital yuan is effectively an electronic version of fiat currency. It has been working on a virtual currency since 2014.
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