Was Bitcoin’s $25,000 Breakthrough Due to Retail Investors?
3 min readBitcoin, the worlds first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has continued to smash through all time high price records what seems to be almost every other day.
On Dec. 24-25, Bitcoin was hovering around $23,000-$24,000, then launched past yet another previous all time high. What’s interesting is not that Bitcoin broke its all time high price again, but how and when it did it.
Breakthrough x3
According to Adam Back, the CEO of Blockstream, institutional investors were not responsible for Bitcoin’s breach of $25,000, but that retail investors were. Back recently tweeted, “So $25k* on 25th, three new ATHs $24.7, $24.8 and $25k in a day. You think institutions did that? On Christmas day? Retail did it – only people near a keyboard”. On Dec. 25, much of the world celebrates Christmas, and companies shut down so employees can spend time with family and loved ones. Under these circumstances, for Bitcoin to break its all time high price three times in a day and overtake $25,000, retail investors must have been responsible. Most institutions are simply not working that day.
Increased interest from a variety of sectors
2020 has been a hard year for the world overall, but a fantastic year for Bitcoin. In the beginning of the year, BTC was trading well under $10,000, and now it seems Bitcoin is preparing to close in on the $30,000 price range.
Much of this rise in popularity is due to global financial conditions and increased institutional interest. These correlate as investors are looking for safe haven assets amongst financial uncertainty. This year, billions of dollars poured into Bitcoin from corporate investors such as MicroStrategy, one of the biggest business intelligence firms in the world. MicroStrategy has invested over $1 billion in Bitcoin. Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, also personally owns hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. He views the cryptocurrency as a strong hedge against fiat currency inflation.
Changing environment
Institutions with massive amounts of capital to invest in can drastically change the atmosphere around Bitcoin. They also provide a level of assurance to retail investors. When an average investor sees a top company invest hundreds of millions or billions into a new asset, it shows the investor that these large organizations have faith in the asset and the ability to maintain and increase in value.
This increased institutional interest has been great for Bitcoin. However, market analysts only ignore the retail investors at their own peril. Retail is pumping billions of dollars into Bitcoin collectively. As some governments begin to inflate their currencies and suffer greater economic turmoil, we may continue to see both retail and institutional investors flock towards Bitcoin.
The post Was Bitcoin’s $25,000 Breakthrough Due to Retail Investors? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
