Thursday Thoughts: Moon
Did you even sleep? Bitcoin just reached past $20,000 and currently a thousand bucks more. It’s that time to sit back, relax, post memes and yes, to still learn more about it.
Good morning. Did you even sleep? Bitcoin just reached past $20,000 and currently a thousand bucks more. It’s that time to sit back, relax, post memes and yes, to still learn more about it.
Welcome to Thursday Thoughts, part of our new series: BitPinas Daily. We will look at the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum and the major cryptocurrencies. Crypto is global, but sometimes news that matters happens while we sleep. So we bring to you what’s happening in our space here and abroad.
Market Price as of December 17, 2020:
| Bitcoin | $21,318 | 10.2% |
| Ethereum | $642.23 | 9.8% |
| XRP | $0.564 | 23.6% |
| Tether | $0.99 | -0.1% |
| Litecoin | $92.27 | 15.4% |
| SLP | $0.031 | -6.5% |
Bitcoin closed December 16, 2020, at $21,318 per BTC. We’re up 14.8% in the last 7 days and 198% since the year began. This is the new all-time high.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $394,434,024,279 which is 63.1% of the entire cryptocurrency market.
We normally segment this article with different topics, but I really don’t feel any other news matters today. So enjoy this Thursday reading all about Bitcoin.
Just in case you want to buy or sell Bitcoin now, we’ve rounded up the virtual currency exchanges and P2P marketplaces where you can do that locally.
Bitcoin
Stampede of Bitcoin buyers pushed BTC past $20k, exchange data shows
They were right – $20,000 is the magic number, a floodgate that’s now been opened. Data showed that there was an unusual spike in the number of stablecoin inflow addresses for all exchanges. It means a large number of people or group are depositing stablecoins on exchanges to buy the dominant cryptocurrency.
For Coindesk, this could be influenced by key news that a major U.K.-based investment firm invested around $744.26 million worth of bitcoin.
So yes, institutional investors.
“Looking forward to 2021, we should expect the outsized bids of institutions to have a much greater determining influence on the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” Artur Sapek, founder of CryptoWatch, told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin whale emerges with $1 billion, Alan Howard’s Backing
A hedge fund whose expertise is in volatility bets has come forward to say that they quietly invested more than $600 million in crypto.
Eric Peters, CEO of One River Asset Management said he set up a new company to capitalize on the growing interest in cryptocurrencies among institutional investors. Peters said he has joined forces with billionaire hedge funder Alan Howard, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Managements and also said they are committed to bring its holdings of Bitcoin and Ether to about $1 billion as of early 2021.
Their names might be foreign, let’s just say they are people operating on the institutional side of things.
The best part of the story:
“Peters was wary of triggering a spike in the prices of Bitcoin or Ether. He described executing his trades as inconspicuously as possible and finishing all the buying in November before Bitcoin hit $16,000,” Bloomberg reported.
Bitcoin
Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd says Bitcoin should be worth $400,000
Another key institutional player, Minerd said the rampant “money printing” and Bitcoin’s scarcity could put the dominant cryptocurrency up to around $400,00. He’s not joking. This is what he said:
“It’s based on the scarcity and relative valuation such as things like gold as a percentage of GDP. So you know, Bitcoin actually has a lot of the attributes of gold and at the same time has an unusual value in terms of transactions.” (Bloomberg)
Bitcoin
“No excuse for institutions now”
Crypto market maker B2C2 has been acquired by SBI Financial Services, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, a Japanese conglomerate. This means SBI is the first major financial group to run a digital asset dealing desk, Reuters said when it broke the story two days ago.
According to Maxime Boonen, B2C2’s founder, the deal removes the final barrier to entry for institutional investors interested in digital assets. “They can now trade electronically on a FIX connection against a bank, then keep their coins with any of a plethora of regulated custodians and have their crypto balances audited by a big four firm,” he told The Block.
Philippines: #CryptoPH
Lucky to have witnessed the milestone
At BitPinas, we haved an article parked in our vault ready to be published the moment Bitcoin hit $20,000. That was two months ago and we even asked quotes from Miguel Cuneta, Co-founder of SCI Ventures and Apryl Albero, Marketing Head for Paxful Philippines. I said “Please answer the next question as if Bitcoin just hit $20,000. What are your thoughts and what is your advice to new investors entering just now?
Head over to this article to find out their responses: Bitcoin is Back to the Top After Reaching $20,000
Let me just say we’re happy to be here three years later to have witnessed this milestone.
What Else is Happening?
- Bitcoin bears gets rekt: shorts suffer $450 million liquidation (Decrypt)
- American express gets in on crypto for institutional investors (Decrypt)
- CME group announces Ethereum futures product (The Block)
- Bitcoin smashes historical high above $20K — Here’s why it’s different from 2017 (Cointelegraph)
This article is first published on BitPinas: Thursday Thoughts: Moon
