Last Time Bitcoin Broke $17K The Way To $20K ATH Was Quick

Bitcoin shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. After taking over $16,000 a few days back, the cryptocurrency is now trading well over $17,000 on its way to the former all-time high.

The last time the price was this high, it only took six days to reach its ATH value. This happened back in December 2017.

Bitcoin Price Blasts Through $17K

It’s safe to say that bitcoin’s price has been on fire throughout the past couple of weeks. The cryptocurrency is up an astonishing 53% in the past 30 days and over 104% since this time last year.

What is more, BTC is currently just some $2,500 away from its all-time high value reached on December 17th, 2017.

Speaking of December 2017, this is also when Bitcoin’s price was as high as it is right now. At the time of this writing, BTC is trading at around $17,660, up around 6% on the day.

Rewinding the clock back in time, we can see that the last time the price broke $17,000, it only took it six days to reach its current ATH value at around $20,000.

This Time is Different

While history shouldn’t be used as an indicator for future actions, it’s also worth noting that the overall environment within the cryptocurrency field, in general, is flat out different this time around.

In 2017, there was a swarm of retail investors, and their interest peaked right around when the price was higher.

As seen in the above chart, the interest in “bitcoin” is nowhere near its peak from 2017. Yet, the price is almost there.

One of the reasons for this is the greater involvement of institutional investors. Just today, CryptoPotato reported that Grayscale now holds over 500,000 BTC, worth roughly around $8.5 billion at current rates.

Publicly-traded companies such as MicroStrategy and Jack Dorsey’s Square (to name a few) have also jumped on the bandwagon, giving a sense that this rally is driven by smart money.