Bitcoin price soars to all-time high
09:52, 13 April 2021
Bitcoin hit $62,839 (£45,667) at around 9.30am while Ethereum, the second-largest crypto, was valued at $2,211 (£1,614). This lifted Ethereum above the psychologically important 2,200 shadow line.
Since last April Bitcoin has soared more than 1,000% in value. Recently senior commodity Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone claimed Bitcoin could hit $400,000 this year.
“The technical outlook for Bitcoin in 2021 remains strongly upward, if past patterns repeat,” he explained in a recent market report, citing a “55x gain in 2013 and 15x in 2017”.
Institutional acceptance easing?
Ethereum has met recent resistance but some analysts think a break-out looks likely. Ethereum’s supply shrank recently, which may augur liquidity issues, but is largely positive for valuations.
On 6 April Ben Lilly of research firm Jarvis Labs said growing institutional demand and frustration with management of the dollar was seeing a ‘Grayscale Effect’ – “and crypto slowly getting used as an everyday solution as opposed to just a speculative market”.
“What this means is ETH’s price is gearing up for a historic run,” he added. Ethereum 2.0, designed to increase security and scale, launched in December. Ethereum is quitting Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm for verifying blocks and coins to a proof-of-stake (PoS) arrangement.
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ETH more ‘green’
The pros and cons between the two arrangements are closely debated but a proof-of-stake design generally aligns network user interests better, it is thought, and is claimed to be more environmentally friendly.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase – used by Tesla when buying $1.5bn in bitcoin – is preparing to go public. Currently the combined market cap of all cryptocurrencies is now in the $2tn region.
Read more: The outlook for ethereum in 2021
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