Bitcoin recovers to new high of near $40,000 in six weeks amid Amazon’s crypto job posting

Monday's price was highest since the $40,517 mark on June 16.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, on Monday seemed to be getting its mojo back after a six-week lull. The virtual currency on Monday peaked to $39571 at 6:44 a.m — highest since the $40,517 mark on June 16, according to data from CoinGecko. Bitcoin had started to rally from $29,599 on July 21 to $34,624 at 4:30 a.m. Monday before it shot up 14.2 per cent to the new high in around 75 minutes. Bitcoin was trading at $38,362 at the time of filing this report. Expert sees Amazon’s recent job posting, which indicated its foray into cryptocurrencies for payments ahead, as one of the reasons for the latest spurt in Bitcoin’s price. 

“Bitcoin’s recent rally can be attributed broadly to two crucial events. First was the job posting on the Amazon website for the position of blockchain product lead. It added fire to the news about Amazon contemplating accepting Bitcoin payments in the future. It led to a massive shift in the momentum from bearish to highly bullish across the crypto spectrum,” Edul Patel, CEO & Co-Founder, Mudrex told Financial Express Online. 

According to the job posting by Amazon, its Payment Acceptance & Experience team, which looks after its payments business, is looking to hire a digital currency and blockchain product lead at its headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The posting read that the candidate will leverage his/her domain expertise in blockchain, distributed ledger, central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive the overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities.

“Another reason for Bitcoin rally is several short positions on BTC got liquidated, which pushed the prices even higher. Bears are the ones who profit by bringing the markets down. However, if the market moves in the direction opposite to what they initially predicted, traders place a ‘stop-loss’ to cut losses. Since the markets moved higher in a very short period of time, these traders didn’t have the chance to modify their trades, and these stop-losses got triggered,” added Patel. On the short positions, these stop-losses are essentially ‘buy’ orders and as demand for Bitcoin increased, the prices moved even higher. 

Last week, Tesla’s Elon Musk at the Bitcoin-focused conference B Word had said that the company would resume accepting Bitcoin as payment for its cars once he confirms with a little more due diligence around the share of renewable energy usage that is involved in mining Bitcoins. “I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50%, and that there is a trend towards increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin” Reuters had reported quoting Musk.

The suggestions/recommendations around cryptocurrencies in this story are by the respective commentator. Financial Express Online does not bear any responsibility for their advice. Please consult your financial advisor before dealing/investing in cryptocurrencies.