Bitcoin Nears $10,000 Internationally As It Approaches $18,000 In Zimbabwe

Bitcoin reached new highs internationally today as it reached a high of $9732. This was after it opened at $9326.59 and that was the lowest the cryptocurrency traded for today. These values are according to Coindesk, CEX actually has the price at $9849.83.

These prices are quite remarkable especially considering how some experts have been foretelling a crash ever since Bitcoin started to gain traction. Even when news broke that it was nearing $10000, the experts were on hand to warn people that the bubble is closer to bursting than ever before.

The reason they say this is of course because no one really understands Bitcoin or at least how it can have a valuation of over $160 billion. Yes, Bitcoin has a market cap of about $160 billion right now. That is more than the market valuation of Unilever (Lever Brothers) which has a valuation of $143.9 billion.

This state of affairs baffles the experts who insist that the fact that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value speaks to its valuation being speculative and so is a bubble and bubbles eventually burst. They could be right but in the meantime the cryptocurrency’s prices are out to embarrass them.

Bitcoin opened the year at $1000 and in eleven months this has grown to almost $10,000. That is unbelievable growth. If you consider that it took Bitcoin around 7 years to get to $1000 and then in eleven months that 1K becomes 10K. No wonder traditionalists are foaming at the mouth.

Here in Zimbabwe we passed the $10,000 mark a while back. Today we approach the $18,000 milestone. Golix has the price at $17,875. We actually got a high of $24,400 today but it consistently traded around $17,000.

We have the cash crisis which gave us the bond note to thank for that. The premium on the cryptocurrency is likely to fall soon if the same optimism that led to foreign exchange rates falling creeps into the digital world too. When the military takeover started the premium was almost 100% and so it still hovering around that.

Do note however that in Zimbabwe the volumes being traded are very low and will therefore not affect the international market. On Golix, only about 2.3 Bitcoin were traded in the last 24 hours.

There is renewed optimism in Zimbabwe which is being reflected on the market even as exchange rates on the streets, (illegal) have fallen since the resignation of Mugabe. We see Bitcoin falling to at least the international rates if people perceive the economy to be on the mend. Oh, and the RBZ said the cryptocurrency is not legal in Zimbabwe, we will see what impact that has on its price trade volumes.

It will be interesting to see where Bitcoin goes from here and so we will keep following its progress.