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Bitcoin record:
The cryptocurrency has gained more than 60 percent in value within 4 weeks
Photo: KAREN BLEIER / AFP
The record hunt for the digital currency Bitcoin continues in the new year.
The value of Bitcoin hovered around the $ 33,000 mark on Monday morning after the cryptocurrency hit a record high of $ 34,400 on Sunday on the Luxembourg trading platform Bitstamp.
Bitcoin only passed the round mark of 20,000 US dollars at the beginning of December - and has since grown by another 14,000 US dollars.
Bitcoin is the oldest and by far the best-known digital currency.
Experts had recently estimated the market capitalization to be around $ 560 billion.
For the latest soaring, the market repeatedly states that the digital currency has recently moved more into the focus of major financial investors and is in greater demand.
However, experts also warn of the extreme price fluctuations that can be observed time and again with Bitcoin.
The value of the crypto currency had already more than quadrupled in 2020.
The fluctuations remain high and have intensified again in the past few hours due to profit-taking (see chart).
Investors who are still getting on board now run a high risk of loss due to the strong fluctuations.
At other trading venues, of which there are numerous, the record highs can deviate, as there is no central Bitcoin trading.
"The bull market feeds the bull market"
On Saturday alone, Bitcoin jumped four thousand marks, whereby, according to expert Tilo Emden, the 30,000 mark was primarily responsible for the rapid rise in prices.
"Mastering the mental mark of $ 30,000 should have additionally fueled the rally," he wrote in a short study on Saturday evening.
"Rising price levels are attracting private investors who have waited a long time behind the sidelines and flirted with engagements. Market participants waste no thought on the risks and side effects of the highly volatile asset class. Because the bull market feeds itself almost entirely by itself."
With a share of around 70 percent, Bitcoin is by far the largest digital currency.
Their market capitalization comes to a calculation by the provider of Coinmarketcap.com at around 500 billion dollars.
According to the site, all digital currencies together come to a little more than $ 700 billion.
This means that the asset class is still comparatively small in size despite the recent rally.
For comparison: The shares of the US technology company Apple are currently worth around 2.2 trillion dollars.
Doubts about dollars and euros - does Bitcoin offer protection against inflation?
The rise in the price of Bitcoin this year is justified by several developments.
It is crucial that the topic of digital currencies has moved more into the focus of investors again.
This is not least a consequence of an advance by the large payment service PayPal, which wants to enable its customers to pay in digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is also being boosted by the fact that more and more professional investors are interested in cryptocurrencies.
The interest of professional investors is often considered to be long-term, which could stabilize the very volatile Bitcoin price.
Interest in digital currencies is also being increased by the corona pandemic and the associated sharp rise in national debt.
For this reason, some investors fear rising inflation in the medium to longer term, which they want to hedge against with alternative investments.
more on the subject
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The corona pandemic and the numerous rescue programs of the global central banks are causing a flood of money and thus also strengthening interest in the alternative currency Bitcoin: Due to the extremely loose monetary policy of many central banks and the immense state aid, some investors are likely to be critical of traditional currencies see confirmed.
Whether the new types of digital currencies offer sustainable protection against high inflation rates is doubtful due to their high exchange rate fluctuations.
At least Bitcoin has built in a kind of inflation protection: The amount of Bitcoin that can be "mined" by providing computing power in the blockchain is limited to 21 million units from the outset.
The digital currency has a fixed upper limit of 21 million units in its code and a mathematically predetermined monetary policy through "halving": In this point there is a significant difference to currencies such as euros or dollars, which can theoretically be printed in infinite quantities.
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