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4 pm on March 5, 2023. Bitcoin reaches $69,200. The previous historical high of 21 November at 68,999 was thus broken. This record was missing, in dollars. Because in the other main currencies, including the euro, the cryptocurrency had already reached new highs in recent days. However, this is a very volatile session. Immediately after the top, the price slipped to the 67,500 area due to the violent forced closure of many long leveraged positions (positioned at levels higher than the historic high). The close triggered forced selling which prompted a small price correction. In any case from this date it will enter the statistics.
Now begins the most difficult part of the rise that started in January 2023 and which since then has led Bitcoin to record a performance of 400% (it started from a minimum below 20 thousand dollars). Sustaining the price up there, where there have been no trades in the past and therefore there are no reference points for the market, will be more complicated. At least in the short term.
From a fundamental point of view, Bitcoin is benefiting from various factors. The most important is the approval of the ETF on the spot price on Wall Street on January 11th which is encouraging the entry of new operators. A new demand on average 10-12 times higher than the quantity of Bitcoins mined every day: 900. A quantity which from next April will also be halved due to the halving effect, that process written in the cryptocurrency protocol which fuels the scarcity effect every four years of the token.
Even the expected rate cut in 2024 by central banks is working in favor of Bitcoin which, like gold, does not distribute coupons and tends to suffer from phases in which bonds are very “generous”. It is no coincidence that March 5, 2024 will also be remembered for the concomitant record of gold, that raw material that Bitcoin has been trying to replicate (and in some ways improve experimentally) for 15 years. In a digital way.