Bitcoin has been flirting with the $ 30,000 mark for weeks, finally breaking that record on Saturday. The virtual currency is now valued at more than $ 33,000, the highest level ever.
Bitcoin (XBT) has tripled in value during 2020, and has grown steadily even as the stock market plummeted in the early days of the pandemic. Investors were attracted to it, in addition to other cryptocurrencies, as the US dollar weakened.
And with the US Federal Reserve expected to leave interest rates near zero for several more years, Bitcoin may continue to gain new fans.
BlackRock’s chief investment officer, Rick Reader, said digital currency could replace gold. PayPal, the payment giant, embraced Bitcoin after it was reluctant to do so.
This is not the first rise in Bitcoin's price, as it made solid success in 2017, reaching a record high at the time of more than $ 20,000.
But its price fell to just over $ 3,000 by early 2019, coinciding with China’s continued crackdown on the cryptocurrency business, and then rebounded to $ 8,000 in May 2019. It rose to over $ 20,000 in December. , And quickly rose in the last month.
Bitcoin experts remain optimistic about the currency.
"When the price of any asset rises so quickly for an extended period of time, I exercise caution, and urge anyone trading Bitcoin not to indulge in euphoria," said Nicolas Pelikanos, head of trading at NEM cryptocurrency. While Bitcoin is expected to rise to $ 50,000 by Valentine's Day, he said, "I think we are at the beginning of what will be a huge bull market."
However, even as Bitcoin became mainstream, the currency was still commonly used by scammers, giving it negative attention.
Last July, hackers seized the Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama in an apparent attempt to earn income by fooling people with bitcoin.
Due to the anonymous and decentralized nature of the currency, it can be difficult to recover funds after being lost in a scam, as there is no central authority - such as a bank - to intervene.
And decentralization has made cryptocurrencies a favorite of scammers, even when it attracts technologists and investors alike