By Jeff Paul
Bitcoin’s market cap has increased by around $350 million since yesterday. Although many pundits are pointing to Greek’s probable euro exit as the cause, the surge seems mostly due to explosive volume coming out of China.
Despite the government trying to keep it secret, the Chinese stock market is experiencing an epic crash that should terrify every economist on the planet. Yet the Western press seems eerily quiet and calm about it.
Nevertheless, the Chinese people now appear to be looking for safe havens as 75% of stock trading is reportedly frozen in freefall.
Look at the volume coming out of China:
Source: Tradeblock.com
Bitcoin has been trending higher since the middle of June when it broke out of the flat $240 range. The catalyst appears to be the Greek capital controls and eventual Grexit vote.
Bitcoin is being heralded by major financial publications as a safe haven or workaround.
Suddenly bitcoin is a huge story again and the price is reflecting it.
The same thing happened in 2013 when the international banks forced a bail-in on depositors in Cyprus. We all know what happened after that, right?
The price of bitcoin went on a run from $150 to $1100 before leveling off at around$240. Coincidentally, that was also around the same time that China’s first bitcoin exchanges went online.
With the euro woes just beginning, China’s epic stock market crash, and NYSE’s glitch this week, we may see bitcoin continue to rise in value.
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Jeff Paul is a co-founder of Coinivore. Follow on Twitter or Facebook.