Cryptocurrency Bitcoin surged to an all-time high of $28,599.99 mark on Wednesday quadrupling in value this year amid greater interest from big investors.
The broad bull run in the cryptocurrency market and PayPal’s approval of Bitcoin has expanded the possibility of its usage, surging the demand of the cryptocurrency.
The world's most popular cryptocurrency was last up 6.94 per cent at $28,119. Bitcoin has witnessed an exponential surge by almost half since crossing the $20,000 mark for the first time on December 16.
"The supply side to the bitcoin market will remain tight," said Jacob Skaaning of crypto hedge fund ARK36. According to the industry website CoinMarketCap, the latest gains have taken bitcoin's market capitalisation to over $518 billion.
The limited supply of bitcoin, produced by mining computer that validates blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles has helped the cryptocurrency to move upwards over the past few days.
The cryptocurrency has a reputation for being inflation proof. This fact was witnessed in 2020 when the pandemic crushed leading economies of the world and opening up the roof of inflation. Most of the physical currency took a hit but bitcoin, on the contrary, broke one record after another. The online currency outperformed all the other trading options in 2020 and its rally drew a huge momentum from greater demand of riskier option.
Meanwhile, the other major cryptocurrencies, which tend to move in tandem with bitcoin, were trading flat. Ethereum, the second-biggest virtual currency, was down 0.4 per cent, on track for a 2020 gain of around 465 per cent.
Some of the major central banks across the globe are exploring possibilities to allow the issuance of digital currencies. A bitcoin is simply an equivalent of cash but in electronic form. It is similar to any other real currency.
