Bitcoin Towards $10k, Ruined by Cryptos
For this week, Bitcoin (BTC) has come within a brushing distance of $10,000. It touched its highest since October last year. However, it failed to move over the key threshold.
So far this year, Bitcoin surged by almost 40%, hitting $9,780 per BTC on the Luxembourg-based exchange Bitstamp yesterday. At the same time, investors and traders anxiously wait for May’s halving event, amongst other developments.
In spite of this, most of every other cryptocurrency handily outpaced Bitcoin’s price so far this year. And this is with some clocking three-digit percentage gains in the first several weeks of 2020.
In the top ten biggest cryptocurrencies by value, Bitcoin SV, an offshoot original Bitcoin, has marked the steepest increase this year. It boosted by 209%.
Bitcoin SV broke away from Bitcoin cashback in 2018, managed by the controversial Australian computer scientist Craig Wright. Last month, it flew higher after reports that Wright has obtained documents in helping to prove he had a hand in BTC’s creation a little over ten years ago.
In addition to that, the Bitcoin and crypto community has been mocking the claim. Additionally, Wright has so far failed to back up the claims.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin cash rose 113%.
SFOX researchers stated, “While prices appear to be increasing and substantial growth is happening in terms of institutional product offerings and regulatory clarity, there are still significant unknowns hovering over the market at large.”
And this left their market outlook in the neutral phase.
The Market
Moreover, Bitcoin is still the prime cryptocurrency market mover. But with its dominance, a measure of BTC’s value compared to the broader crypto market, at 64.2%. This is up from over 50% in February 2019.
SFOX analysts also said, “It’s not clear whether bitcoin will function as a safe haven in coming geopolitical turmoil.”
Then, they also explained that it is not specified how much institutional appetite is really there for every institutional crypto offering launched. They don’t even know the effect of the upcoming BTC block reward halving – which is four months away – on the price of BTC.
Crypto Mining in China
Elsewhere, because of the coronavirus in China, the government has made a series of measurements to control the situation under control. As a result, it affected businesses across the nation. And with the existing quarantine control, people are staying at their current location and are not allowed to back to their work.
Notably, they forced to shut down a mining farm amid the epidemic. Based on BTC.top CEO Jiang Zhuoer’s Weibo moment, they reluctantly shut down every mining machine in the mining farms he owns in a remote region in China.
In the post, the company is not allowed to go back to work at the moment. He stated that personnel at the mining farm have never stopped working. Moreover, none of the maintenance staff left the place before the quarantine control period.
Aside from that, affordable electricity and resources in provincial areas like Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, and Sichuan have contributed to the status of China as a major market for Bitcoin miners.
