Bitcoin’s price has broken $15,000—breaking highs not seen since the 2017 bull run. But what’s propelling this momentum?
In brief
- Bitcoin’s price continues to rise, and institutional investment is a major reason for this increase.
- The world’s most popular stablecoin Tether has also played a significant role.
- Bitcoin is now closer to $20,000 than $10,000.
Institutional investment is one of the biggest reasons why Bitcoin’s price keeps going up. Bitcoin has added nearly $5,000 to its price in the last month, has shot up $2,000 in the last two days and is currently at around $15,600—quite the ride.
In August and September of this year, MicroStrategy invested a total of $425 million in Bitcoin. One month later, Square followed suit, investing $50 million in the famed cryptocurrency. Also in October, PayPal announced features that allowed users to trade in Bitcoin, as well as Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. All of these high profile moves have worked wonders for Bitcoin’s explosive growth.
“The recent flurry of institutional activity—particularly the involvement of a household brand like PayPal—has undisputedly impacted the price of Bitcoin as mainstream interest and trust in this form of investment often increases following such news,”
Antoni Trenchev, managing partner of Nexo, told Decrypt.
This wave of mainstream interest, dubbed by Jason Deane, Bitcoin analyst at Quantum Economics, as the “MicroStrategy Effect” has provided several highlight moments in recent months.
Read more: Decrypt