Bitcoin hits US$10,000 after 50% price surge in five days

Bitcoin breaks key resistance on Korean exchanges, unclear if broader market movement

Bitcoin has broken past US$10,000 on the two largest Korean exchanges. While yet to be confirmed if the price will break out, this price surge comes as a result of a dramatic rally over recent weeks.

According to pricing data released by CoinMarketCap the two largest Korean exchanges, UpBit and Bithumb have both recorded prices above US$10,000 in the last 24 hours. The two exchanges, sitting 14th and 20th in terms of largest bitcoin trade volume consistently trade at a premium compared to global markets.

The largest Western cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase's GDAX, has bitcoin priced in at US$9,840 as at the time of writing. The United States (US) based Gemini exchange has bitcoin trading at US$9,845.53 showing an increase of 1.28% on the day.

Those two exchanges are the largest US based exchanges accounting for 17.82% of bitcoin trade denominated in US dollars according to information on BitcoinAverage.

BitStamp is The next largest Western cryptocurrency exchange in terms of US dollar trade in bitcoin. It carries out 11.58% of that that market's trade and is based in Luxembourg and Slovenia. The ask price on BitStamp is currently sitting at US$9,884.28

US$10,000 is seen as a critical resistance level for bitcoin for technical and psychological reasons. It is unclear whether this price event on Korean exchanges is premature or is this may lead to a broader break out across the global cryptocurrency market.

Liquidations on short calls

The largest exchange trading bitcoin in US dollars according to CoinMarketCap is OKEx trading US$322.4 million worth bitcoin on 24 hour basis. The largest short on the OKEx order books was recently liquidated meaning that the US$119 million bet on bitcoin going down was no longer beneficial.

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BitcoinAverage does not list OKEx as being a leading exchange in bitcoin/USD trade because of some questions surrounding their trade practices. So while some of the numbers on OKEx can not be verified fully it is still a huge event in cryptocurrency markets to see a position of that size closed out.

Significant rally

Just since Tuesday, 1 May 2018, the bitcoin price has risen from US$8,891.05 increasing to US$9,958.11. That US$1,000 increase over five days represents a huge 12% swing.

Viewed over the month the figures become staggering. The bitcoin floor was found just within one month ago at around US$6,624. The increase in those four short weeks to US$9,958.11 represents a monumental 50.32% increase in the price of bitcoin measured in terms of the US dollar.

The last time bitcoin was priced at US$10,000, according to CoinMarketCap, was 8 March 2018 as bitcoin was decanting to its early April lows. Those lows of around US$6,000 in April had not been seen since November 2017. At that time in 2017 bitcoin was on a parabolic run leading up to its US$20,000 highs in December.

In terms of market capitalisation bitcoin has increased significantly as well. From the early April lows bitcoin's market cap has increased from US$112.5 billion inflating to US$167.5 billion. Which is still well below the December high of US$333.5 billion.

Although US$166 billion dollars from that December high water mark the bitcoin community may look at this as a turning point for the price of bitcoin. The reason for this is that despite the price of bitcoin being below half its December highs bitcoins market cap is slightly above 50% of December highs.

The event which followed the December highs have been termed by the bitcoin community as 'the halvening.' With the price of bitcoin penetrating US$10,000 and its market cap also above 50% of its all-time-high, Technical indicators and market sentiment seem to have aligned.