Bitcoin prices are now trading above $4,600 as the combined value of all mined bitcoins climbs above $76 billion, now accounting for over 50% of the combined cryptocurrency market cap of $151 billion. On a global average, USD prices climbed from $4,460 to peak at a high of $4,622 at the time of publishing.
At the time of publishing, data from Bitfinex shows bitcoin price trading at $4.605. Since the turn of the month, bitcoin has now gained a little over 10%. Prices are up 5% from Saturday’s trading alone.
Bitcoin’s marked gains come after China’s ban on all initial coin offerings (ICOs) in early September, eventually leading to the ‘voluntary’ shuttering of bitcoin exchanges in China – once the world’s largest bitcoin market. The market reshuffle has since seen Japan emerging as a major bitcoin hub for bitcoin trading and adoption after recognizing bitcoin as a legal method of payment earlier this year. Data from BraveNewCoin and Cryptocompare shows Japanese markets witnessing a notable majority of the world’s bitcoin trading over a 24-hour period.
The ban has also led to a number of Chinese startups looking to Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges to list their tokens.
“Bitcoin’s rally is continuing off the back of a more certain regulatory environment across the world, most notably in Japan,” Gatecoin CEO Aurélien Menant told CNBC. “This has encouraged more institutional funds to enter the market and we are finally seeing the effect of this additional liquidity.
Elsewhere, cryptocurrency observers pointed to the rise in Bitcoin network transactions using the August-activated Segwit soft fork over the weekend.
SegWit usage is going parabolic … about to break 10%#bitcoin pic.twitter.com/4GQsD5hHTz
— Alistair Milne (
@alistairmilne) October 8, 2017