Bitcoin’s price has always had the tendency to bounce up in the face of extreme adversities. There have been several examples where fiat ailed to help people and cryptocurrencies took charge.
In the wake of the latest Coronavirus outbreak, Bitcoin has again climbed on the charts, prompting many to speculate its future use cases.
What started as an isolated incident in China, the Coronavirus has now claimed its first life outside the mainland. On Monday it was reported that the virus had claimed a life in the Philippines, forcing doctors and scientists to ramp up their work. In the midst of this chaos, Bitcoin increased in value while the fiat world struggled to hold steady.
During the previous week, Bitcoin hit a yearly high of $9570 after rapid growth on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. The world’s largest cryptocurrency performed the best on Bitstamp, the Luxembourg based exchange popular for its user base. At press time, Bitcoin was trading for $9392 with a total market cap of $170.92 billion. Bitcoin’s 24-hour market volume was at $31.609 billion after a weekly hike of 8.54 percent.
Looking at the price charts, it is clear that Bitcoin’s bull run coincided with the release of the initial Coronaviris reports. At the same time gold, gold also witnessed an increase in value amid growing uncertainty.
On January 28, Bitcoin’s value shot up from $8957 to $9358 in a matter of hours. The hold above the $9000 market has not let down since then. Market analysts predicted that as long as there was a flux in the news circulating around, Bitcoin’s price would continue to shoot up. Shaun Djie, the Co-Founder & COO of digital token company Digix was also of the opinion that the recent rally could be attributed to the social downturns.
While the epidemic may be one reason for Bitcoin’s growth, analysts believed that a weak dollar also contributed to it. There was a new consensus about the US Dollar’s weakness and many investors looked at Bitcoin and other cryptos as a safe haven. Shaun Djie added:
“The backing from Square and Facebook are definitely very significant to the overall crypto industry as it validates distributed technologies and the overall digital assets and cryptocurrency space,” Djie said. “The embrace of crypto by these companies can allow mainstream users to enjoy the versatility and agility of the technology.”
The various factors aiding Bitcoin’s growth comes at a time when some parts of the cryptocurrency industry have placed their bets on an altcoin resurgence. Although this ‘alt-surge’ remains to be seen, Bitcoin maximalists were confident that their favorite crypto would come out on top.
