Bitcoin Hits Escape Velocity: Insanity Goes Vertical In Late Wednesday Surge

Bitcoin hit $12,000 on Wednesday, which would have big news were it not for the fact that it subsequently hit $13,000 in the same goddamn day.

We wrote that around 3:30 New York time. It was accompanied by this humorous chart:

Here it is 8:00 New York time and Bitcoin is now sitting more than $1,000 higher. Allow us to reiterate: Bitcoin is now up more than $2,000 in the last 20 hours. It’s rising by an average of $100 an hour on Wednesday.

Folks, this thing has left the building. It has hit escape velocity. It has literally gone vertical…

It’s not clear if there’s any point in mentioning this, but according to Bloomberg Intelligence Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone, the last time it had these type of steep gains, it corrected by more than 70%. Here’s Bloomberg’s Mitchell Martin summarizing:

If bitcoin trading technicals follow historical patterns, the crypto currency that was worth $1 in 2011 and more than $13,000 today should tumble to less than half the latest level. In 2013, the only time since reaching parity with the dollar that it had a steeper rise than the current parabola, bitcoin twice traded at more than 90% above its 60-day moving average. Two peaks that year, at $234 and $1,137, were each followed by corrections of more than 70%.

So buyer beware. Or not. Maybe it’s now “seller beware.” We’re going to run through some quick stats for you here just so you can try and wrap your head around this.

Since the Jamie Dimon lows in September, Bitcoin has added nearly $200 billion in market cap. Let us put that in perspective: since September, Bitcoin has added two whole Goldman Sachss worth of value. It is bigger than Boeing, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Verizon to name a few.

If you had all the Bitcoins, you could now purchase 15 state of the art aircraft carriers. You could buy Warren Buffett three times over. It is now larger than the economies of Portugal and New Zealand:

So when you hear someone tell you that Bitcoin is taking whole countries by storm, they could mean that both figuratively and literally at this point.