Bitcoin Propels Over $9,000 On Excitement Over Bakkt’s Beta Phase & Facebook’s Crypto Libra

For the first time in over a year, Bitcoin (BTC) crossed above the $9,000 mark yesterday. The king of crypto, which primarily decides the overall market trend, hit $9,385 briefly, and was trading at $9,156, reflecting a gain of 1.7% in 24 hours and 19.7% in seven days.

Bitcoin has appreciated by more than 142% in 2019, while the value of Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index has nearly doubled amidst a flurry of startups planning to increase their offering related to cryptocurrency services.

The price recorded yesterday was the highest since May 2018, although it is far lower from all-time high of $19,000 recorded in late 2017. The rally took Bitcoin’s market capitalization to cross $165 billion. Notably, at its peak, Bitcoin recorded market valuation of over $327 billion.

The uptrend in the past month was also complemented by a steady increase in trading volume, with $23.156 billion worth BTC-enabled trading activities in the past 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap. However, major cryptocurrency platforms reflect ‘real’ transactional data of $1.50 billion worth BTC.

Several reasons are being put forth for the recent rally in Bitcoin. Firstly, the planned launch of stablecoin, named Libra, by Facebook with backing from Visa, Paypal and Uber is seen as wide adoption of cryptos by tech and other new age business leaders. The new coin, Libra, is expected to facilitate users to make purchases in numerous ecommerce websites and not only in Facebook.

The second reason given for the Bitcoin rally is that Binance, arguably the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has decided to halt its services in the US. This implies a slight drop in selling pressure that enables the bulls elsewhere to propel the crypto.

Notably, BNB coin, the native crypto of Binance fell by over 2% against the BTC to trade at $32.50 at the time of writing this article.

In the meantime, Twitter, which is Facebook’s rival social media platform, continues to maintain the position that Bitcoin has the potential to become the “future of internet money,” with CEO Jack Dorsey asserting his confidence in Bitcoin and starting to employ cryptocurrency specialists in his payment transfer firm Square.

Notably, Bitcoin’s rally boosted the price of major altcoins such as Ethereum (ETH – $268), Ripple (XRP – $0.4282), Litecoin (LTC-$135.16), EOS (EOS-$7.02) and Cardano (ADA- $0.0917).

Most Bitcoin traders and investors are looking forward to Bitcoin halvening event that is anticipated next year. The event is anticipated to cause a ‘supply shock’ triggering a Bitcoin rally.

At present, cryptocurrency traders have their focus on Litecoin, which is scheduled to undergo halvening in August. The crypto has appreciated over 300% in 2019 and investors anticipate supply squeeze to propel the prices further.

In other developments, the much awaited Bakkt cryptocurrency exchange, which is backed by the Intercontinental Exchange and Starbucks, is preparing to enroll beta testers for its platform by next month.