Bitcoin saw a large group of big investors pumping up their bags as the price of the cryptocurrency has more than doubled this year. These billionaire investors brought at least half a million bitcoins worth $11.5 billion in the past three months alone. During the same period, Bitcoin’s price had more than doubled from the $10,000 level. According to Chainalysis, the surge in new demand helped in fueling the price of the cryptocurrency to its record-breaking all-time high.
Big Investors Fuelled Bitcoin to an All-Time High
The recent surge in demand from billionaire Wall Street investors marks a sharp turn-around from bitcoin’s first wild rallies from years ago.
For instance, Bitcoin’s rally from 2017 was mostly driven by retail investors out of speculation. During the same year, the price of the cryptocurrency neared $20,000, soon after crashing by 80% in the later months.
In a similar pattern, Bitcoin in 2020 had record-breakingly exceeded $23,000, bringing its yearly gains of more than 200%.
Philip Gradwell, Chief Economist at Chainalysis, said to CNBC:
“The role of institutional investors is becoming ever clearer in the data. Demand is being driven by North American investors on fiat exchanges, with greater demand from institutional buyers.”
The booming spike in Bitcoin has been mostly fueled by top Wall Street billionaires who also expressed bullish sentiments on the cryptocurrency publicly. For instance, Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones have both invested in the cryptocurrency and highlighted its potential as a hedge against inflation.
Bitcoin’s Increased Mainstream Attention
Earlier this year, institutional players including Square and MicroStrategy have invested heavily in Bitcoin. PayPal has also recently added a new service to buy Bitcoin directly from their app. Meanwhile, Grayscale’s publicly traded Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has increased by 6 times compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, Grammy-nominated rapper Megan Thee Stallion announced yesterday a $1 million Bitcoin giveaway on Twitter in a partnership with Jack Dorsey’s CashApp. The announcement coincided with Bitcoin’s all-time high.
