Overnight, Bitcoin set a new all-time high by exceeding a major psychological level – $10000! This unprecedented event took place on South Korean exchange Bithumb. For the first time in history, the BTC exchange rate reached 10223 USD/BTC. It was a sharp increase in the Asian demand for Bitcoin that backed this rally to the new all-time high. It’s interesting to note that Bitcoin has gained 18% over the last 48 hours!
South Korea and Japan has been driving the Bitcoin rally over the last couple of weeks. For instance, Bithumb saw its turnover more than double from 2 billion dollars all the way up to 4,6 billion dollars over the reporting period. Experts say that the current Bitcoin boom started after the FSE, the local financial regulator, announced that they weren’t going to regulate the market of digital currencies and shortly after that Shinhan, South Korea’s second-biggest commercial bank, started testing Bitcoin wallets and related services.
Something similar was seen in Japan in May 2017. Back then, the Japanese authorities legalized Bitcoin as a payment means. Japanese banks started accepting Bitcoin for bank deposits. At the same time, there are rumors (supposedly insider info) that the so-called Chinese family office started loading up on Bitcoin in the second part of November. This means that Chinese capital is flowing away to Japan and South Korea since the Chinese market of cryptocurrencies is still unregulated and even banned to some extent.
At the same time, NordFX experts report that as opposed to the global derivatives market (639 trillion dollars), Bitcoin’s market cap is miserable, which means that even a tiny drop from this sea can make Bitcoin skyrocket. The experts don’t deny a rally up to $20K in 2018, and even $50-100K if major institutional investors come into play as well.
