Bitcoin’s surge in price pushed it above the $500 billion market cap level for the first time as the price of the crypto asset touched another all-time high (ATH) at $28,378 per coin.
With institutional investors seemingly taking a break, talk turned to retail buyers fuelling the latest phase of the Bitcoin bull run.
“The bull cycle of bull cycles has started, as more and more players are starting to adopt towards Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe summarized to Twitter followers.
There’s approximately 18,582,450 BTC in circulation today and during the last 24 hours, bitcoin (BTC) has seen $21 billion in global trade volume.
The stablecoin tether (USDT) is still the dominating pair against BTC on Sunday capturing 56 percent of all trades. This is followed by trading pairs like the USD (15.22%), JPY (8.08%), EUR (5.13%), KRW (3.52%).
During the last seven days, BTC is up 16.4 percent and 59.12 percent over the course of the last month. 90-day stats show BTC has gained 155 percent, and 12-months data against the USD shows BTC is up 272 percent today.
Some $2.3 billion worth of Bitcoin futures expired on Christmas day, which also historically has led to choppy markets.
With the end of the year looming, some fund managers may also be buying BTC so they can brag next year about being smart enough to get in in 2020 while neglecting to say at which price they had done so.
Like we reported earlier the ongoing epic bull run in Bitcoin has led to an ever widening gap in its market cap against Nigerian blue chip firms like Dangote Cement, MTN or Guaranty Trust Bank.
What this implies is that there will continue to be retail and some institutional investors from Nigeria looking to invest in the crypto asset class due to the limited asset diversification options and depth available in the Nigerian market.
Since Bitcoin is priced in dollars it is also a veritable hedge against devaluation for the local Nigerian currency the Naira.
While Nigerian stocks are up 44 percent year to date in dollar terms, Bitcoin is up more than 250 percent in 2020 alone.