The leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has consistently kept its rising pace this week despite its unregulatory status.
The digital coin rose by 8.44 percent in the last 24 hours to $18,072.79 or N8.69 million per coin as of 12 pm Nigerian time on Wednesday.
This was after Citibank analyst, Thomas Fitzpatrick, the head of FXtechnicals market insight product, Citibank, predicted that the world’s most dominant cryptocurrency could hit $318,000 per coin by December 2021.
This he explained via a technical analysis using gold’s similarities of the 1970s to arrive at his prediction.
While this has helped bolster confidence and deepen the digital asset reach at a time global investors are looking for where to dump their money amid rising global risk and uncertainty, it also pointed to the potential of the unregulated virtual coin.
Bitcoin to market capitalisation rose to N160.64 trillion on Wednesday with the total volume traded hitting N4.47 trillion.
Investors are starting to approach bitcoin investment as a haven asset investment, especially after it started exhibiting similar traits with traditional assets like gold.
Citibank, in its latest report to institutional investors, said bitcoin is the new gold and hoarders would be forced at some point in the future to sell as “the bill has to be paid.”
The leading investment bank explained that because hoarders are opaque, the coin, like gold, easily travels through the borders. However, because of its limited production of 21 million coins, high demand amid scarcity and the need to pay bills would force the unknown faces hoarding the digital coin to sell at some point in the future.