Thanksgiving weekend in the United States is a time for Turkey and shopping, and this year, it seems, investors went shopping as well, scooping up bitcoin in record numbers and fueling a surge in the cryptocurrency that extended through the holiday weekend and into Monday. Bitcoin was trading at $9,719.99 as of 2:48 p.m. HK/SIN, up $3,902.97 since last month according to Coinbase. The bitcoin exchange added approximately 100,000 new accounts between last Wednesday and Friday, valued at $13.1 million.
“The move appears to be retail driven,” noted Brian Kelly, an analyst for CNBC. But despite the popularity of cryptocurrencies and bitcoin specifically, many investment advisors are still wary of this trend, warning clients that investors in cryptocurrencies will eventually lose money on their investment. Others warn that bitcoin is in a bubble that can burst at any moment, making it an extremely risky investment.
According to the Wall Street Journal, bitcoin’s price surged from $8,000 to $9,000 in only seven days, making it the fastest thousand-point jump in the cryptocurrency’s history. It is now nearing the $10,000 mark, with some speculators expecting that milestone to be reached by the end of Monday’s trading day, if not sooner. Still, Bitcoin has gained nearly 870 percent year-to-date, fueling the contention that the bubble cannot continue to expand much further.
With bitcoin’s price explosion, the total market capitalization for the cryptocurrency market has surpassed $300 billion for the first time. Of this, bitcoin’s market cap is the majority, valued at roughly $158 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com.