The bitcoin bulls are back in town.
The price of bitcoin surged today by $1,268.19, reaching a six-month high of $11,203.90, or a one-day gain of 12.73%. It’s another indication of the resurgence of both investor interest in the technology and renewed confidence in its long-term prospects after a rough year of regulatory scrutiny and declining value in the major cryptocurrencies.
For cryptocurrency investors like Alyse Killeen, an advisor to Mantis VC (the investment firm launched by the celebrity music duo The Chainsmokers), the climb in Bitcoin prices reflects the increased stability of the infrastructure that undergirds Bitcoin specifically, and distributed ledger technologies more broadly.
“Bitcoin has much more intrinsic value today than it did a year ago just from an infrastructure perspective,” Killeen wrote in a direct message. “[The] Lightning network is working, sidechains are working. And so you can do more with bitcoin today than you could last year.”
The Lightning network is a second-layer technology for bitcoin that scales the blockchain’s ability to conduct transactions and it’s increasing people’s ability to actually use the network.
It’s more than just increasing capacity driving the surge in investor interest and prices, Killeen wrote. There’s also the decreased supply of available bitcoin — a function of the halving of coins in circulation which happened earlier this year.
Moreover, financial institutions are now holding cryptocurrencies — giving investors more confidence in the security of the assets, Killeen wrote.
Some blockchain experts, like Willy Woo, who is an analyst now working at Lvl to launch Bitcoin banking services, even called the timing for the most recent bull run.
Killeen also expected the markets to rise in the third quarter or early fourth quarter thanks to the increasing infrastructure to support transactions and activity on the blockchain, the amount of bitcoin in circulation and a response to the halving of currency in circulation.
“What’s happening now is that larger institutions are offering purchase facilitation and custody (e.g. Fidelity),” Killeen wrote. “This is bullish for Bitcoin AND self-custody. With ‘real banks’ holding bitcoin for their customers, the average person will view bitcoin more like money, and [the] differentiation of being your own bank becomes even more clear,” wrote Casa chief executive officer Nick Neuman, on Twitter.