Bitcoin Hits $50K, Jumps 200% in 3 Months, USD Shorts Touch a Decade High

NFT Jan 16, 2023 0 93 Add to Reading List

The price of bitcoin touched an all-time high surpassing the $50k handle on February 16, 2021. Cryptocurrency advocates celebrated the milestone as bitcoin has spiked more than 200% during the last 90 days and 400% against the U.S. dollar for the entire year.

Bitcoin (BTC) has crossed the psychological $50,000 zone after fighting the region for more than 24 hours. The leading cryptocurrency, in terms of market capitalization, has gained more than 154% since the all-time high in December 2017. At around 7:37 a.m. (EST) bitcoin (BTC) hit $50,603 per unit on Tuesday.

Bitcoin (BTC) touched an all-time high at $50,603 per unit on Tuesday, February 16, 2021.

While BTC captures the $50k mark, the crypto asset’s dominance index is only 61% today. This is due to ethereum (ETH) commanding 13.81% of the overall crypto economy’s value and tether (USDT) capturing 2.21%. Meanwhile, cardano (ADA), polkadot (DOT), and binance coin (BNB) all have a touch less than 2%.
BTC’s hashrate has been very high today and at the time of publication, the network is processing at speeds of around 163 exahash per second (EH/s). Moreover, with the network mining difficulty at 21.43 trillion, it has never been harder to mine than it is today. Despite the massive difficulty, a whopping 21 mining pools are mining BTC.
The top five mining pools capture a significant amount of SHA256 hashrate as all five operations command 75% of the hashrate. This includes F2pool, Poolin, Antpool, Binance Pool, and Btc.com.
While bitcoin (BTC) has reached record highs the U.S. dollar looks weaker than ever as DXY Index charts show the currency continues to sink. Moreover, 2021 has been the year of shorting the greenback, as reports note that USD short positions have been at their highest in ten years.
Meanwhile, bitcoin proponents have been excited about positive news like Tesla’s $1.5 billion BTC purchase, Mastercard and BNY Mellon acceptance, the city of Miami’s recent moves to adopt bitcoin, and rumors of Uber and Apple jumping aboard.
As BTC captured the $50k price range, analysts think that bitcoin prices could go way higher. The popular Twitter account @Cryptocapo_ tweeted to his 49,000 followers that we could see the $60 range soon enough.
“BTC – Bullish continuation seems more likely now,” the trader wrote. “Above $50k it teleports to $60k. $59k-$62k is the Fibonacci confluence zone (resistance). We could see a bigger shakeout there, maybe to $45k,” the analyst added.
At the time of publication, after BTC touched $50,603 per coin, the price dipped back under the $50k handle. Currently, bitcoin (BTC) bulls are attempting to cross the psychological zone again.