Bitcoin hit a new all-time high, breaking 822,000 baht last weekend, buoyed by demand from institutional investors keen on its potential for quick profit.
The volatile virtual currency has gained more than 230% this year amid stock market turmoil.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance reported bitcoin's price has already hit strong resistance at US$25,000 and hit a new high of $25,945.
Factors supporting the rally are purchases by institutional investors such as Grayscale, Square, MicroStrategy, MassMutual, SkyBridge and others, which are holding bitcoin as a reserve asset during the pandemic, said Jirayut Srupsrisopa, co-founder and chief executive of Bitkub Capital Group Holdings Co.
The reason institutional investors are selecting bitcoin is it was created with a total cap of $21 million, meaning supply is limited while demand continues to increase. As a result, price speculation has increased as bitcoin is the first decentralised digital currency in the world.
According to CoinTelegraph, total market capitalisation of bitcoin is $495 billion. This exceeds the total market value of the financial giant Visa at about $460 billion.
There are 18.5 million bitcoins in the system, with new coins released only when miners are able to solve equations and build new blocks on bitcoin's blockchain network. New blocks occur roughly every 10 minutes and the reward for mining is 6.25 bitcoin each at present.
Analysts around the world are optimistic about bitcoin as an investment trend in 2021, with Intotheblock analysts estimating bitcoin price for 2021 will have support at $23,069 and $23,377 (694,000 baht and 703,000 baht).
If the price can stay above this support line, the overall outlook is likely to continue to rise.
Bitcoin is not very popular in Thailand at the moment, but in 2021, financial giants such as PayPal are projected to launch an exchange and payment service with bitcoin and other digital currencies.
This means that more than 289 million PayPal customer accounts and millions of merchants worldwide have access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.