While it took about five to six years for Bitcoin to move away from the fringe of society, where it was half seen as a novelty and half seen as the savior from the world's fiat monetary system, its sudden emergence into the mainstream has been incredibly robust and unlike anything ever seen in monetary history.
But as we enter into the second quarter of 2017, what was originally intended for the masses to be used as a medium of exchange has suddenly turned into a speculative investment that is being lapped up by the very institutions that would see it financialized instead of used as a real currency. And the massive rise in value over just the past five months is threatening to categorize the cryptocurrency as a bubble, and scare away many individuals who might seek an alternative to the dollar, euro, or yen as a way to secure their wealth.
Analysts including Charles Hayter, the CEO of CryptoCompare, explained that the Japanese and South Korean Bitcoin exchange markets played a key role as the driving factor of Bitcoin’s recent price surge. In an interview with CNBC, Hayter stated: "Arbitrage between the fiat pairs drags markets up or down in line with leading markets. At present, volumes on the KRW and JPY pairs dominate trading with a combined 48 percent market share.”
From a purely fundamental point of view, investors and owners of Bitcoin need to realize that the market is treating the cryptocurrency like a security, and at a time when nearly all other assets such as bonds, stocks, and real estate are at all time highs. And one of the reasons that Bitcoin is skyrocketing in price and value right now is because institutional players are moving money into what they believe is one of the very few potentially undervalued assets. But like with any security or investment that receives too much buying in a short amount of time in relation to selling, at some point it will hit terminal velocity, and the fall in price will be just as fast as the velocity in which it rose.
