The cryptocurrency world is abuzz again as Bitcoin price continues to climb to new heights. It is almost getting to a point many Bitcoin enthusiasts have seen before, although for only a short period of time - 1 mBTC getting to be on par with $1.
Bitcoin price has almost crossed the $1000 mark on several exchanges including Bitfinex, Poloniex and Bitstamp as at the time of writing. With the look of things, the crossing may happen today, Feb. 2 although the likes of Erik Voorhees and several other onlookers had predicted it would have happened at least a day earlier.
The last time the $1000 mark was crossed, apart from the all-time record high, was earlier in January 2017 but it didn't last more than six days when the price was reversed due to the impact of the onsite inspection of key exchanges in China by the country's top bank, PBoC. The price of Bitcoin slumped due to the checks.
What does it mean?
When it happens, the 1 mBTC to $1 parity, owing to the $1000 break, will make calculating it - which is 1/1000 of a Bitcoin or 0.001 BTC - as a unit of account easier, especially for new users who find the decimal numeric a little confusing.
Going by Bitedge, mBTC is popular because they are easily equatable mentally to Bitcoin amounts and government currency amounts. This will impact Bitcoin use positively as merchants and users would be able to relate to the unit better than the calculations they may have to do to ensure their charges are well done.
Lunar Year effect
With February being a very busy month for the Chinese, especially the first few days, it is not clear yet what impact they will have once their festive season is over and they resume full activities.
There doesn't seem to be any major factor that may stop the price of the digital currency from crossing $1000 anytime soon. Rather, the question now is centered on whether it would hang in the spot for a very long time or would be reversed in a couple of days like we have seen in the past.
Relatedly, the digital currency's market cap has also crossed $16 bln again as at the time of publication.