Bitcoin has rallied again and soared to fresh new all-time highs of over $ 24,000 per bitcoin after it started the week at less than $ 19,000.
Bitcoin price, up a whopping 30% this week alone, climbed to $ 24,220 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange, before slipping back slightly.
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However, amidst this week’s massive Santa rally of bitcoin and cryptocurrency – which has added more than $ 100 billion to the value of the world’s digital tokens – Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has warned of the “risk” of investing in bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s price is up 30% this week alone, contributing to gains of over 200% overall … [+]
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“While it is great to see market rallies and news organizations in a new way to draw attention to this emerging asset class, we cannot stress enough the importance of understanding that investing in crypto is not without risk,” Armstrong wrote. a blog post. this week – published just before the San Francisco-based company revealed it has confidentially filed for a highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Coinbase is hopping onto the IPO bandwagon at a time when the other tech companies, such as AirBnB and DoorDash, are debuting with sky-high valuations. When Coinbase, which makes money from fees for customer transactions, last raised money in 2018, it was valued at $ 8 billion.
“Crypto can be a volatile asset class,” Armstrong added. “Often more than the types of traditional financial instruments most investors are used to. This means, for example, that the market can move in both directions much faster than the stock markets.”
Bitcoin price, which started the year at around $ 7,000, crashed to below $ 4,000 in March as the coronavirus pandemic caused the markets to collapse. It quickly rebounded to around $ 10,000 and started climbing to its all-time high in 2017 in October.
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Bitcoin’s price surge has accelerated in recent months as a growing number of leading investors cite bitcoin as a potential inflation hedge and some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are changing their vote on the digital token asset class.
“Like all asset classes, crypto markets will rise and fall over time,” Armstrong wrote, noting bitcoin’s bubble in 2017 that saw bitcoin price rise from less than $ 1,000 at the start of the year to about $ 20,000. only to crash back to $ 3,000 in 2018..
“We will occasionally see strong gains in the market with prices going up quickly and aggressively. While we are always excited about the increased interest in crypto, it is also important to point out that this is not just a time of high volumes, but also of price.
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The bitcoin price has added an additional 5% in the last 24 hours, boosting gains for the week … [+]
Coinbase
Despite these warnings, the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community is celebrating the return of bitcoin price to its all-time high, with many long-term cryptocurrency investors feeling justified after three years in the cold.
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“We’re now officially in uncharted territory,” Ian Balina, the chief executive of Washington DC-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency data company Token Metrics, said via email, adding that he thinks the bitcoin price could rise. to about $ 50,000 in the next few days. year. “
“I think the low $ 20,000 is just the beginning,” JP Thieriot, chief executive of California-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Uphold, said in email comments.
“This upward trend is likely to continue in the coming months as investors continue to buy consumer-style digital platforms that provide better access to these markets than traditional financial services firms.”