The price of bitcoin is rallying once again, spiking abruptly by $16.50 across major exchanges on the CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index over a 15-minute period yesterday.
The movement began at 23:15 and ended at midnight UTC when the price hit a high of $418, with the largest movements taking place from 23:15 to 23:30.
At press time, prices were once again on the rise, pushing the price to a one-month high of $421.83, its highest total since 5th November. coindesk-bpi-chart (1) Experts were less certain about the reason for the price escalation, with theories ranging from the continued influence of activity in the global CNY market to speculations that the potential unmasking of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto has calmed investor concerns about the digital currency. Help from Satoshi?
Market analysts so far seem split on the cause of bitcoin’s latest price increase, with the rise in value following reports by tech industry news outlets such as Wired and Gizmodo that published new evidence bitcoin’s enigmatic creator may be a pseudonym for Australian businessman Craig Steven Wright and US forensic researcher Dave Kleiman.
First published by Wired at 21:25 UTC, however, the news appeared online roughly two hours before the price increase. Still, some market observers believe that clarity on who is the owner of Satoshi’s roughly 1 million unspent bitcoins (worth roughly $465m at press time) could have had a psychological impact on the market.
“I think it is the Satoshi news because the articles describes how the 1.1m BTC allegedly are cryptographically locked up, only to be released by January 2020,” editor in chief at Adamant Research Tuur Demeester told CoinDesk. “I think the market is acting on this news, placing a bullish bet on this story being true.”
With 14.9m BTC in circulation according to data from Blockchain’s market data service […]
