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Bitcoin:
The cryptocurrency started a price rally on Friday and is looking at the $ 40,000 mark again
Photo: JIM URQUHART / REUTERS
The digital currency Bitcoin started a race to catch up on Friday with strong fluctuations and at times rose again above the 38,000 US dollar mark.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin had temporarily plunged below $ 30,000.
It was quoted at US $ 38,900 on Friday afternoon on the Luxembourg trading platform Bitstamp, approaching its record high again, while the Dax and Dow Jones came under pressure again.
The oldest and most important cyber currency is subject to strong fluctuations: At the beginning of January, the cryptocurrency had reached a record high of just under 42,000 dollars.
Ironically, the richest man in the world, Tesla boss Elon Musk, had rekindled interest in Bitcoin with a tweet.
The cryptocurrency rose by around 20 percent within minutes on Friday after Musk simply posted "#bitcoin" in his Twitter biography.
It is unclear whether this advertising will give the crypto currency a sustainable price boost or just trigger a flash in the pan, said analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research.
According to market observers, the renewed interest in Bitcoin could also have something to do with the duel between flashmob traders and hedge funds: A few days ago, Musk helped fuel the stock market hype surrounding US video game retailer Gamestop by linking to an investor forum on the Internet.
There, concerted purchases by retail investors had forced hedge funds to resolve bets on stocks falling.
This drove some funds to the brink of ruin.
Also read:
Anger of the stock market flash mob hits online brokers
The dispute between private investors, who agree to buy certain stocks using the "pump and dump" method, and US hedge funds has meanwhile also reached a political dimension in the USA: Private investors accuse trading houses of always acting in the interests of Wall Street.
An uprising against "Big Money" and the power of the big US financial institutions on Wall Street could support Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the medium term - they are still considered an alternative to the established financial system.
Most recently, the new US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had increased skepticism about Bitcoin.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday,
Janet Yellen,
74, raised concerns that cryptocurrencies could be used to fund illegal activities.
Another reason for selling, according to stockbrokers, was the warning from the research house BitMex that some Bitcoin could have been issued twice.
However, these concerns were soon allayed.
Bitcoin trader Coinbase wants to go public via direct placement
The largest US trading platform for crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Coinbase, is meanwhile specifying its plans for an IPO.
The San Francisco-based company announced on Thursday (local time) that it would go public via a direct placement.
The papers are listed directly on the stock exchange without the support of investment banks and a prior pricing procedure.
Other larger companies such as the music service Spotify or the office chat app Slack have already been successful with this rather unusual, but cheaper variant.
Coinbase had already submitted an application for a stock listing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-December, setting the course for the first premiere of a large US Bitcoin exchange on the public capital market.
When exactly it should be so far and how much money Coinbase wants to raise is still unclear.
According to the tech blog “Techcrunch”, the company, which was founded in 2012, was valued at around eight billion dollars in a financing round by investors a good two years ago.
The US investment bank JP Morgan only announced a price target of around 150,000 US dollars for Bitcoin in the first week of January, thus fueling the hype surrounding the cyber currency.
But the upper price limit for Bitcoin is limited - one of the limiting factors is the extremely high energy consumption of Bitcoin mining.
The Bitcoin boom is accompanied by significant price fluctuations, but according to market observers, it remains unbroken despite the recent setback.
Strong price fluctuations, especially on weekends
It is also noteworthy that Bitcoin has recorded the largest price fluctuations in recent times, especially over the weekends.
After the price slide on Friday, investors can now look forward to a restless weekend.
During the first weekend after Christmas and on the first two weekends of 2021, Bitcoin still had double-digit growth - to now, again in the night from Sunday to Monday, give way by more than 10 percent.
At the same time, the trading volume on the weekends is also significantly larger than on weekdays, as analyzes by the CryptoCompare service show.
Anyone who wants to speculate on Bitcoin will have to do so 7 days a week in future - the activities of professional traders on the weekends are too strong.
Since March value has increased tenfold
Bitcoin's recent soaring is still unparalleled.
In March of last year, Bitcoin temporarily fell below the $ 4,000 mark - and has increased more than tenfold since that Corona low.
Since mid-December alone, in just over three weeks, the price has almost doubled despite the recent setback.
Over the year, the plus amounts to more than 300 percent.
There is hardly any other form of investment currently offering such drastic price increases.
However, critics warn against exaggerations and a bubble, since such extreme price increases are rarely sustainable.
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, however, the market repeatedly states that the digital currency has recently moved more into the focus of large 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 cryptocurrency more than quadrupled in the past year 2020.
Doubts about dollars and euros - does Bitcoin offer protection against inflation?
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.
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.
la / dpa
