Bitcoin's Triumphant Q1 Price Resilience and Performance Surpassed All Fiat Currencies

The price of bitcoin is once again steadily rising towards the US$1300 range and currently outperforming the price of one ounce of gold. The first quarter of 2017 has shown bitcoin’s market resilience is stronger than it’s ever been before.

Also Read: Brexit and Bitcoin and Gold, Oh My!

Bitcoin Q1 2017: Outperforming the Nation State’s Fiat Currencies and Now One Troy Ounce of Gold

The first four months of 2017 has been exciting for bitcoin market participants as the price per BTC has had an incredible run. At press time the price per bitcoin is around $1290, and the decentralized cryptocurrency currently commands a $20 billion market capitalization. On April 25 one bitcoin outperformed the spot price of gold as it had done already a few weeks ago. Furthermore, as a currency bitcoin is also surpassing every government-issued fiat currency performance-wise as well.

Even though bitcoin markets have been on a tear, the rise has been rather modest. As far as other cryptocurrencies are concerned, altcoins like Ethereum, Dash, and Monero, performed even better than bitcoin’s 30 percent Q1 gains. For instance, Dash increased in price by over 800 percent and Ethereum’s market valuation jumped ahead by 600 percent. However, many of the pumping altcoins have yet to see any real world use cases outside of cryptocurrency market pumps and dumps.

Real World Demand

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is seeing a lot of demand from quite a few specific countries including Russia, India, China, Venezuela, Japan and more. Bitcoin volumes for all of these countries have seen exponential surges, most notably on the Localbitcoins platform. Rumors of both Indian and Chinese governments planning to legalize and regulate bitcoin proliferate. Meanwhile, on April 1 Japan’s government legalized bitcoin as a form of payment and the country will soon see increased merchant adoption.

Many Bitcoin proponents were hoping for the approval of a bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) this year. However, on March 10 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the bitcoin ETF. Instead of seeing a significant price decline bitcoin markets have continued to rally after the ETF rejection. Moreover, SEC has revealed it will be once again reviewing the ETF, and could change its stance in the future.

“Pursuant to Rule 431 of the Rules of Practice, 11 BZX’s petition for review of the Disapproval Order is granted,” explains the U.S. regulatory agency.

BTC Price Resilience Persists Even Through the Scaling Drama

Above and beyond all of the worldwide demand, bitcoin markets have stayed resilient throughout the controversial scaling debate as well. Every single day the drama surrounding the debate has been quite hectic, to say the least, but all things considered the price hasn’t been affected.

The decentralized currency continues to march against the US dollar considerably as it approaches the $1300 range. For now, bulls are currently dominating the market as many speculators consider the plethora of reasons for the spike such as Japan, the ETF review, and overall global demand driving the bitcoin rally.

Really no one can pinpoint the exact reason why bitcoin is performing so well, but not many people are complaining about the rise.

What do you think about bitcoin’s Q1 performance this year? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Bitcoin.com, and Bitcoin Wisdom.

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