Cryptocurrencies' total market capitalisation in Thailand soared to nearly 4 billion baht on Friday, or around 6% of the Stock Exchange of Thailand's (SET) 2020 daily average trade, backed by the continuous price surges of bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Bitcoin's euphoric rally endured as it topped 1.24 million baht or US$40,000 on Friday, while ethereum soared, reaching an all-time high of 39,168 baht.
According to data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), bitcoin's average trading volume surged from 460 million baht during Dec 22-27 to over 553 million during Dec 28-Jan 2.
Bitkub founder and group chief executive Jirayut Sruptsrisopa said the platform's trading volume stood at 3.8 billion baht total on Friday.
The twofold jump in trading volume was driven by bitcoin's rapid increase in price, which sparked public interest as the digital exchange saw its total accounts rise to over 800,000 on Friday, he said.
Poramin Insom, founder and chief executive of Satang Pro Corporation, said the exchange's trade volume has increased threefold as the platform welcomes first-time workers and traders aged 45 or older who are experienced in stock trading.
"For newcomers, I recommend investing in bitcoin in a fund without obligations," he said.
"Bitcoin is like a roller coaster -- you could gain by 10 times and suddenly lose 90% in the next minute."
Bitcoin's value halved in 2012, then dropped drastically to around $100 in 2013. It then surged from $200 to $1,300 in November 2013.
Bitcoin's value halved again in 2016, followed by the price surpassing $20,000 in December 2017, then dropping again to $3,000 in 2018.
Palakorn Yodchomyan, chief executive of Kulap, the country's only decentralised digital exchange, said cryptocurrency trading in Thailand is just a small part of the global trade.
Cryptocurrencies just reached $1 trillion, or about 30 trillion baht in value, for the first time last week, spurred by the growing market capitalisation of bitcoin, which outperformed the market caps of Apple, Google and Facebook, said Paolo Ardoino, Bitfinex's chief technology officer.
Mr Palakorn recommends new investors without experience trading cryptocurrencies opt for dollar-cost averaging, avoiding investment of a large sum of money in bitcoin in one go as the price is quite high.
He believes the price could keep on rising, but it also has a chance to crash again, which it did in 2013 and 2018.
Mr Palakorn suggest traders interested in cryptotrading allocate a small part of their funds to bitcoin, without worrying about price volatility.
"Keeping bitcoin is harder than buying it. It's hard to make a profit when the price is already high," he said.
"Traders will hesitate to cut losses when the price collapses."