Bitcoin jumps into record heights this week putting the digital currency to close at triple the price of gold in the market.
Thomas Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat, said in an email that initially, their reports shows that the bitcoin is viewed as ‘store value’ and over time it would be seen as an alternative to gold.
Bitcoin was being traded to almost $3,487 in the previous trading session after hitting an intraday all-time high of $3,525.04 earlier in the day, according to CoinDesk. Gold futures for December delivery settled at $1,262.60 per ounce.
Bitcoin’s first cross above gold’s price this year on a closing basis was on March 2, according to data from CoinDesk and FactSet.
At Tuesday’s price, the digital currency has more than tripled for the year, against gold’s nearly 10 percent rise.
“I think bitcoin is going to have increasing institutional sponsorship given the pending trading of bitcoin options and bitcoin futures,” Fundstrat said.
The co-founder of Fundstrat also pointed out that the overall size of the gold market at about $7.5 trillion dwarfs that of bitcoin. In the previous session the bitcoin had a market capitalization of roughly $57 billion.
Other digital currencies were also in the previous session. The one-week old bitcoin spin-off “bitcoin cash” rebounded from its former lows near $200 and was trading near #338.25 while Ethereum traded with almost a 5% increase at $280, about 12% higher for the month, according to CoinDesk.