Bitcoin’s price jumped to a new high of $3,786 today, up nearly $300 from around $3,500 yesterday in a bullish run that has continued for months.
Its trading volumes have also increased considerably to $2.1 billion with bitcoin’s market cap now above $62 billion, higher than many multi-national companies.
The recent price jump is probably due to uncertainty over North Korea. You know it’s summer when speculations reach fever pitch over whether we are going to war with the communist regime or whether they will suddenly attack.
The yearly ritual, repeated like clockwork in a two minutes hate of sorts, is somewhat unique this time because the president of the United States has himself joined the spectacle.
You’ve probably heard how North Korea has in some detail specified they will attack Guam. Why, no one knows. But a not so good theory is maybe to educate us all on geography or perhaps to add some excitement to the summer craze.
Trump, having failed to achieve anything in his first six months so mired in a never ending election of sorts regarding Russia with the chess master chessed into a corner by the democrats, probably welcomed the North Korea distraction with his usual adorable manner of speech.
The spectacle plays well to the domestic audience of both North Korea and America. Who doesn’t want to engage in a two minutes chess humping during summer heat, ay.
But that’s probably the surface as it is likely US and China are engaging in proxy rhetorics of sorts with the former probably trying to contain their rise while the latter probably trying to exert dominance over their neighbors.
It’s a game that usually goes wrong, as the last century taught us very well, with the only probable winner being Europe. Something they both likely know so might forget in a week or two that any of this happened and might move on to whatever is the next 5 minutes story of the mainstream media.
However, it gave stock traders a good reason to sell-off after the market reached a new all time high of 22,000 for Dow Jones. A sell-off that would have probably happened anyway after the high, but getting North Korea in there makes it more fun.
Especially because it allows us to add gold’s and bitcoin’s rise to the equation with a narrative of a flight to safety, a narrative which might be falling apart already because stocks rebounded slightly on good economic data.
Bitcoin also retraced slightly to around $2,720 from its new all-time high with its price likely driven more by anticipation that institutional investors are moving in as they can no longer ignore a $133 billion market.
The currency has been on a bull run for now nearly a year, sparked by currency mismanagement in India, China, Venezuela, and many other countries, back in 2016.
Ethereum’s rise has also benefited the oldest decentralized digital currency, with bitcoin getting much of the credit in sending GPUs out of stocks even though GPU bitcoin mining has long been for history books.
While the hard-fork chain-split to Bitcoin Cash fueled its rise as the currency became just that bit more interesting to investors, able to do what fiat can’t.
So it roars, turning weakness into strength, as the free market money rises to claim the Bitcoin Summer.
