/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/60317c44e8c3c0d9b4e4898d/0x0.jpg "Tesla billionaire Elon Musk issued a severe Bitcoin and Ethereum price warning as the crypto market approaches $ 2 trillion")
Telsa billionaire Elon Musk, whose tweets about the meme-based dogecoin cryptocurrency helped put her into a $ 10 billion valuation, warned that the price of bitcoin and ethereum “looks high”.
The price of bitcoin has gone up almost 500% in the past 12 months, in part due to pro-bitcoin and cryptocurrency tweets from Musk and his electric car company Tesla adding bitcoin to its balance sheet – following in the footsteps of American software company MicroStrategy
MSTR
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has long been known as a cryptocurrency … [+]
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Bitcoin’s price rose to $ 57,000 this week, giving it a total value of more than $ 1 trillion, while ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, broke $ 2,000 per ether token for the first time – giving it a total value of $ 226 billion.
Musk made the price announcement for bitcoin and ethereum during a discussion on Twitter about the nature of money. In response to gold investor and bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff, Musk said: “Money is just data that allows us to avoid the inconvenience of switching. This data, like all data, is subject to latency and error. The system will evolve into one that minimizes both. That said, bitcoin and ethereum look high.”
Earlier this week, Musk tried to distance himself from Tesla’s $ 1.5 billion bitcoin purchase, which pushed the price of bitcoin higher when it was revealed.
“Tesla’s action does not directly reflect my opinion,” said Musk via Twitter in response to a Bloomberg interview with the chief executive of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
“Having a little bitcoin, which is simply a less stupid form of liquidity than money, is an adventure enough for an S&P 500 company … When the fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool would not look elsewhere as a fiat currency. The keyword is ‘almost’. “
Bitcoin’s 2021 mega-high has seen its price nearly double since the beginning of the year, thanks to a combination of institutional Wall Street adoption, corporate interest and retail traders building up in the market.
“There are a number of reasons why bitcoin is soaring, but what stands out the most is the trend that MicroStrategy started and Tesla popularized: moving institutional balance sheets to bitcoin to protect against inflation,” said Nicholas Pelecanos, head of blockchain network trading NEM, said in comments sent by email.
The bitcoin price rally has accelerated in recent weeks, helped by Elon Musk and Tesla.
Coinbase
Ethereum, in turn, has benefited from increased decentralized finance (DeFi) – using cryptocurrency technology to recreate traditional financial instruments, such as interest, known as “yield” and insurance. Many of the biggest DeFi projects are built on top of the ethereum blockchain, raising the price of ethereum as users flood the network.
“We have reached a tipping point where people are questioning traditional monetary systems and recognizing that there are better and fairer options,” said Jai Bifulco, commercial director for the blockchain-based precious metals exchange Kinesis, in e-mail comments.
The large bitcoin and cryptocurrency market, made up of thousands of digital tokens, is now worth an astonishing $ 1.7 trillion – up from $ 800 billion in early January.