Bitcoin Surge to Near $40K Puzzles Just About Everybody

Nobody seems to know why bitcoin is surging towards the $40K mark....just that it is and this has many in the cryptocurrency space ecstatic.

Bitcoin nearly topped $38K for the first time in nearly 18 months. There's still a degree of apprehension.

Forbes points to a possible reason for the climb:

The rise in bitcoin's price to nearly $37,000 has been partly attributed to the growing optimism around the approval of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund by the SEC. This has led to a shift in strategy for investors, who are now less inclined to sell calls for additional yield and more likely to buy calls for leveraged upside exposure. The sentiment is echoed across longer durations, with two, three, and six-month skews also indicating continued strength in bitcoin's price.  While a total of 12 asset managers have filed for a spot bitcoin ETF, the process is intricate, and the timeline for an actual launch extends beyond immediate SEC approval.

Why This Matters to Gamblers

The rise in bitcoin gambling has been evident with Costa Rican and Curacao licensed sites typically seeing 80 percent of all transactions in the form of cryptocurrency.  Globally, 36 percent of all gaming transactions two years ago were in the form of crypto, up from 26 percent in the first quarter of 2021.  

Crypto gambling is so significant, in fact, that the market is estimated to be worth $250 million.

From the Crypto-Reporter:

2023 data shows that crypto gamblers spent $2,925,599,422 in crypto on bets in Q1 2021. This number rose to $6,342,214,971 in Q1 2022 – an increase of over 116 percent. In terms of volume, about 36 percent of bets placed in Q1 2022 were crypto, up from 26 percent in 1 2021.

‘You Can Run a Whole Economy on BSV’

Crypto investors are enjoying the run.  Countless others are likely to become despondent over the crash that is likely to come (it always does).

Others are honing in on real world usage of blockchain to build their businesses.

“BTC is a HODL investment case, but you can run a whole economy on BSV,” says Garrett Krause. In an interview with CoinGeek Backstage.

The mining industry veteran talked about his journey with blockchain technology and how he is playing a part in bringing the gold standard back, but on Bitcoin.

Krause is the chairman and CEO of WorldVest, an investment group focusing on long-term outsized growth opportunities. He is also the mind behind TroyMoney, a platform that allows users to purchase tokenized gold easily.

“I’m an old school investor who wants real hard assets,” the 35-year commodities trading veteran told CoinGeek Backstage reporter Becky Liggero at the second annual Unbounded Capital Investor Summit in New York.

BSV is now being used for gaming enterprises.  On-chain gambling company Lil Bit is one recent example. 

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com