Bitcoin sees unprecedented levels of buying with CoinMarketCap showing a price surge of more than $3000 over the past 24 hours.
Today has been one for the record books as Coinmarketcap reports Bitcoin prices topping $18,000 and a market cap of over $300 billion. This newest milestone comes amid a flurry of significant all-time highs over the past 24 hours as Bitcoin climbed from $14,000 at this time yesterday to its current price of $18,053 at press time.
Lightning in a Bottle – er… on the Blockchain
There is some speculation that news of the Lightning Network’s successful test yesterday, in which bitcoin was used to instantly purchase a cup of Starbucks coffee and a Yalls.org article, was at least partly responsible for the most recent flurry of buy activity and resulting price surge. While such small purchases seem insignificant, they mark a turning point in the race to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problems.
In another related first, the Lightning Network also recently performed the first atomic cross-chain swap between Bitcoin and Litecoin…
Read Full: Bitcoin Shatters $18,000 Mark Less than 3 hours after $17,000
