Bitcoin hits new all time high at $68k
The world’s oldest cryptocurrency is barrelling towards the $70k price point for the first time with price up more than 3 per cent today.
In the early hours of this morning Bitcoin set a new record price of $68,641 helping to keep the global crypto market’s value above $3tn for the second day running according to CoinGecko data.
The second largest digital asset by market cap, Ethereum, also hit a new all time high of $4.8k whilst the top ten crypto currencies have all made gains over the past week.
Bitcoin’s price has been lifted on a series of bullish announcements this month. The approval of Bitcoin traded future EFT products was seen as a major step forwards for mainstream adoption and provided retail investors with access to a regulated crypto product.
The announcement that New York’s mayor would accept his first three pay checks in crypto was a further sign of institutional adoption.
At the same time, market supply is low. Charlie Morris, the investment lead for crypto analytics platform ByteTree told City PM “the price is leading the onchain activity, that’s for sure. The market is tight as the miners are reluctant sellers.”
“We’re in a difficulty bull market” Morris explained, referencing the fact that the average time taken to mine a Bitcoin has fallen from the standard of 600 seconds to 560 seconds.
“There’s more Bitcoin being generated, or mined, than are actually being sold. They are being hodled by miners,” Morris said.
Data from ByteTree shows that miners are holding 16m more Bitcoins in their inventories than they were five weeks ago leading to a tightening market supply.
Read more: Global crypto market cap surges past $3tn as top coins rally