The price of bitcoin on Wednesday surged to US$5,600 per coin, a high this year, as local cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors look to join the bull run.
As of press time on Wednesday, the price dipped to $5,435.4 per coin, according to CoinDesk. The price hovered below $3,500 at the beginning of this year and began to rise above $4,000 at the end of March.
Invented by an unknown individual or a collective under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency that can be traded peer-to-peer without intermediaries. Transactions are recorded in a public distributed ledger called blockchain.
The price of bitcoin reached a fever pitch in 2017, rocketing to nearly $20,000 per coin on strong demand and speculative investment worldwide, with some countries such as Japan accepting the cryptocurrency as a legal payment method.
The digital gold rush saw an abrupt U-turn in 2018 when the price of bitcoin fell by more than 70% following China's tightened rules on bitcoin exchanges and the US's imposition of civil penalties on cryptocurrency startups selling staged initial coin offerings.
Poramin Insom, founder and chief executive of Satang Pro Corporation, said bitcoin's uptick was attributed to a technical analysis of a bitcoin price graph suggesting a recovery trend, lower bitcoin supply and program trading of bitcoin used by global investors.
The price of bitcoin has risen by 47% year-to-date, said Mr Poramin. A short-term price correction may occur, but the price is expected to surge in the medium to long term, he said.
There is speculation that Nasdaq will list bitcoin for trading and this will help boost sentiment in the cryptocurrency market, but it will be difficult to drive the price to the highs of 2017, said Mr Poramin.
Jirayut Srupsrisopa, co-founder and chief executive at Bitkub Capital Group, said the cryptocurrency and digital token market has been on a bull run since the beginning of April.
For Thailand, the price recovery of cryptocurrencies could stimulate awareness for digital assets in the short run, he said.
"But for the long term, factors helping to build healthy growth come from innovation and implementing technology for businesses, or the success of market players in adopting the blockchain technology," said Mr Jirayut. "The next couple of years, money from institutional investors will drive the next wave of digital asset companies here."