As investors flooded to bitcoin over the past few days, its price has surged to an all-time high of $10,000. This price peak comes in the wake of increased institutional interest in digital currencies, specifically the introduction of bitcoin futures from CME Group and the CBOE. This milestone also comes near the end of a historic year for bitcoin: Since the beginning of 2017, bitcoin’s price has soared by about 900%. cryptocurrency experts explain the historic price point, the reasons behind its surge, and the factors investors should consider as they look into this asset class.
Simon Yu, CEO of StormX, the blockchain-powered adtech and micro-task innovators, said:
“The bitcoin price is at an all-time high is due to institutional money finally starting to flow into the cryptocurrency market. Recently, announcements from the South Korean Bank Hyosung in support of bitcoin, from CME Group announcing they'll be launching a bitcoin futures market, and from Square Cash announcing bitcoin will be supported caused bullish behavior in the market, pointing to a major shift. The general public is starting to realize cryptocurrency is beginning to be adopted to mainstream markets and will continue an upward trend as they see the potential for more companies to adopt cryptocurrency.”
Christopher Grey, COO of Caplinked
“Investors unfamiliar with crypto are piling new money into bitcoin right now, making the situation highly unstable as investors expect the price of bitcoin to keep going up. Any declines could be exaggerated dramatically because they are not stable owners of crypto.”
“Alternatively, the price could continue to rise parabolically, drawing in enormous sums in the tens of billions of dollars from other risky liquid investments like growth stocks and junk bonds. This could cause the prices of those investments to weaken as a result of this liquidity moving out of them and into crypto.”
“Either way, this situation is not stable and cannot continue for an extended period of time. Something needs to give in one of the risk markets, as liquidity in these markets is not infinite and nothing here is being created, just moved from one risk market to another by speculators. This didn’t matter when total crypto value was small, but at these levels of hundreds of billions in value, it becomes a substantial user of global risk capital.”
Jon Chou, CEO of Bee Token
“Bitcoin has finally passed $10,000. People often complain that it's too late to get into bitcoin, that most of the early adopters have been in since 2010 and there's no more or little room for upside. I'll offer an alternative long term-angle; this is not financial advice. According to blockchain.info, there are approximately 700,000 bitcoin addresses as of November 2017.
One of the main problems bitcoin claims to solve is the issue of remittances, basically globally distributed access. Projects like OmiseGo are founded on catch phrases like "Banking the Unbanked.” Well, there are seven billion people in this world. Assuming a 10% penetration rate and if everyone owns just one address, then there are still 700 million address potentially in the future. That's a potential 1000x in userbase. Regardless of fluctuations in price in the short term, it's important to realize how early we are in the blockchain space as a whole.”
Sol Lederer, Blockchain Director at LOOMIA
“With bitcoin nearing $10,000, long-time bitcoiners finally feel vindicated that their currency that has been ridiculed for years, is at last being taken seriously. Naysayers may still say bitcoin is a bubble, but very few would argue it’s worthless or a scam, yet only a year ago this was a common narrative. Bitcoin’s future is still uncertain; it faces the same serious technical challenges it has for years, and faces stiff competition from newer, more sophisticated blockchains. But even if it were to crash, it’s apparent that bitcoin is here to stay. Whether it trades at $10,000, $5,000, or $500, it’s not going away.”
Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision
“Bitcoin seems to be breaking past new price barriers each week, hitting new highs more frequently, with each new high being breached exponentially faster than before. The news of each new all-time-high creates more euphoria in the minds of both crypto investors, resulting in people flocking towards purchasing bitcoin in hordes. To add to that, the recent news about CME introducing bitcoin futures to pave the way for more institutional capital to enter the world of cryptocurrencies is pushing up bitcoin prices unprecedented highs. That being said, the crypto market is extremely volatile, and this kind of growth has seldom been sustainable, and a flash-crash is imminent in the near future. Long-term, though, I am extremely bullish on bitcoin and the future of cryptocurrencies.”
