Bitcoin Price Exceeds $600, Highest in Almost Two Years

Bitcoin reaches a new high of over $600 as trading in China, faced once more by a devaluing yuan, spikes. Cointelegraph spoke to experts to investigate the reasons for such a price increase and learn their forecast for the future of Bitcoin value.

The price of Bitcoin has passed $600. At time of writing, Bitcoin’s price had surpassed $630. This marks the highest the price of Bitcoin has reached in almost two years.

The last time the price had reached a similar level was late July of 2014. Since then, the price fell to around $200 in early 2015, and has been on a steady rise ever since.

Jose Rodriguez, VP of payments for Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso, sees this as an important milestone in the future of Bitcoin:

“Today we had the highest price in MXN since we started operation on April 2014. This is the highest registered price, in 2013 there were still no Bitcoin Exchanges in Mexico. We believe in the technology and its applications and use cases to bring better financial services for humanity, and not only speculation.”

Spike caused by Chinese yuan drop, impending block halving, or Brexit vote?

The spike in the price of Bitcoin occurred around the same time as a large increase in buying from Chinese exchanges. As with the last spike, fear from a devaluing yuan, combined with China’s capital controls, led to an increase in buying of Bitcoin.

Rodriguez sees a combination of events from both the traditional financial world and fintech as responsible for the price spike:

“I see two relevant economic events, Chinese Yuan devaluation, Brexit voting. And two relevant in the Bitcoin and Blockchain space, more Financial Institutions and VCs Investment in the space and the next Bitcoin Halving.”

Oleg Khovayko, lead developer of Emercoin, sees the rise in Bitcoin’s price as a result of the impending block halving.

He explains:

“I assume, this is effect of preparing to mining halving. Instead of fiat currencies, like USD, EUR, etc, where money emission is unlimited, i.e. central bank or FRS can print as many as wish new money (and by this way, steal some values from community to his own pocket) - Bitcoin emission is transparent and limited, and this is impossible to print unlimited new money.”