All it took was a solid decision and, by the end of the weekend, famed cryptocurrency bitcoin hit a series of all-new record highs.

First, it reached an all-time high of just over $4 225 (R56 300) on Sunday, and in South Africa, the price “shot up from a high of R51 681 early Friday morning to a new record high of R62 843 on Sunday,” reports Moneyweb:

Data from South African exchange Luno shows that 2 241.826 bitcoin were traded via its platform between Friday and Sunday, which at a mid-point of R57 262 is equivalent to more than R128 million.

Casual:

But it didn’t stop there.

To give you some perspective, bitcoin finished 2016 at only R15 149 on December 29; on Monday afternoon, it hit a new higher record of R64 900.

But how? You might have recently skimmed over various concerns regarding bitcoin’s future, and are wondering where this breaking of records came from.

Well, Farzam Ehsani, blockchain lead at RMB, explained it was the eventual clarity on the cryptocurrency’s future that helped the cause:

Bitcoin is said to have “split” on August 1 as Bitcoin Cash, a new cryptocurrency completely independent of bitcoin, was launched following a dispute among developers on how to scale bitcoin.

At the same time, Bitcoin Core adopted SegWit, an update aimed at solving transaction malleability and increasing the speed and throughput of transactions on the blockchain.

“There was a lot of disunity in the bitcoin community leading up to the fork. Given the decentralised nature of blockchains and the difficulty in making protocol upgrades, many people divested from bitcoin not knowing how the fork would pan out. But the fork went relatively smoothly and there is now more clarity on how bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (the forked blockchain) plan to scale. This clarity has drawn people back into the cryptocurrency, and as there’s a limited supply of bitcoin, the price is going up,” he said

Damn, markets really are so fickle.

Here’s how bitcoin is doing in South Africa at the moment:

Bitcoin is fast gaining traction in South Africa. Data from CryptoCompare puts the market cap of South African bitcoin holdings at just over R1 billion compared with a total global market cap of $70 billion. It shows that 556.55 bitcoin were traded at a rand value of R34.2 million over the last 24 hours, which accounts for just 0.13% of total global trade. But Gamaroff said volumes traded on just one local exchange, Luno, are comparable with those traded exchanges in major bitcoin markets such as China and the US.

Although Luno would not disclose the number of active users on its domestic platform, it did confirm a marked increase in interest. “We see an increase in interest – mobile app downloads, new customer signups and trading – correlated to some external events. The first is volatility — when the price goes up or down, more people are buying and selling. That said, when the price moves up, people tend to revisit the idea of buying a small amount of bitcoin, something they may have considered sometime in the past. We also see more press coverage during these times,” said Werner van Rooyen, head of marketing and growth at Luno.

Lorien Gamaroff, chief executive of Bankymoon, explained that globally, bitcoin is going through its “next step” moment “similar to when the Internet became mainstream”:

“It’s not just this funny thing that geeks are playing with. People outside the system are looking at it seriously and trying to figure out how it works and there’s all this new money coming into the system.

“[B]itcoin’s rise is likely to continue as traders’ worst fears such as hacked exchanges and forks have had little to no effect on its price.

“If you’re in bitcoin, you should be bullish. Things that have stopped the rally in the past are not having that effect anymore. Sentiment is positive and there’s nothing fundamentally right now that looks threatening… It’s not impossible to see the price doubling by the end of the year.”

Imagine where you would be sitting if you had invested in bitcoin when Seth told you to back in 2013.

Be bullish, kind sir! One Satoshi at a time.

[source:moneyweb]