A bitcoin swap shop in Krakow city center, Poland.
Artur Widak | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Bitcoin price surged above $ 51,000 on Friday, hitting its highest level since mid-May.
Investors say the Bitcoin movement coincided with hundreds of millions of dollars in options expiring on Friday. They also pointed to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s low profile speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, suggesting Bitcoin was catching up as most other assets responded at the time, with the exception of Bitcoin.
On Friday, Bitcoin temporarily spiked as high as $ 51,026.24, hitting its highest level since May 14, according to Coin Metrics. It broke $ 50,000 two weeks ago and has traded slightly below that line since then, but analysts say it still has headroom.
Ether rose to $ 4,025.75, its highest level since May 15. The price move came amid increased interest in decentralized financial applications or DeFi, applications and NFTs or non-fungible tokens. Usually, Bitcoin’s price has spearheaded other crypto assets whose trades tend to move in line with Bitcoin’s, but investors say it didn’t this week.
“Many institutions interested in Bitcoin have moved to eth as the ‘next hot thing’ and second largest market cap asset,” said Jesse Proudman, co-founder and CEO of Robo-Advisor Makara. “Also, most institutional players understand that many of these NFTs will be built on top of Ethereum, and this is an indirect way to get involved in the fastest growing segment of the market.”
