People walk past a board with the logo of Bitcoin in a street in Yerevan, Armenia September 9, 2019.
Anton Vaganov | Reuters
Bitcoin set a new record high on Monday after the volatile cryptocurrency snapped back sharply over the weekend to recover from a sell-off around Thanksgiving.
The price of Bitcoin broke above $19,000 last week, only to retreat back to roughly $17,000 on Thursday and Friday, according to data from Coin Metrics. It bounced back above $19,800 on Monday morning, breaking the prior record high from 2017.
The move over the weekend is the latest leg of a furious rally for the cryptocurrency, which has nearly doubled in price since early September.
Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder of crypto exchange Gemini and a long-time Bitcoin bull, said on “Squawk Box,” said that he has not been buying more Bitcoin but believes there is still significant upside.
“Our thesis is that Bitcoin is gold 2.0, that it will disrupt gold. And if it does that it has to have a market cap of $9 trillion. So we think Bitcoin could price one day at $500,000 a Bitcoin. So at $18,000 Bitcoin, it’s a hold or at least if you don’t have any it’s a buy opportunity, because we think there’s a 25x from here,” Winklevoss said.
The price of Bitcoin peaked at just under $20,000 in late 2017 before a dramatic decline left it at under $4,000 just 12 months later.
Some are more confident about the staying power of the latest rally, however, as the cryptocurrency has gained buy-in from high profile investors and companies. Billionaire hedge fund manager said in October that Bitcoin’s rally was only in the “first inning,” while Square and PayPal have both become more involved in the space in recent months.
In addition to Bitcoin’s surge, other cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, have also risen sharply in recent weeks.
“It’s super difficult to predict where the Bitcoin craze is going, but if our inflows at Grayscale are any indication of the types of investors that are interested in this asset class or the sizes of allocations being made, we’re just getting started,” Michael Sonnenshein, managing director at crypto firm Grayscale, said on “Squawk Box.”
The volatility of Bitcoin and the secrecy of blockchain currencies has led for some to call for increased regulation in the space. Facebook’s plan to help create the Libra Association and an associated cryptocurrency was met with criticism in Congress.