Above $13K: Bitcoin's Price Extends 2019 Gains to New 17-Month High

Bitcoin’s price has refreshed 17-month highs in the U.S. trading hours with a move above $13,000.

CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index is currently trading at 13,020, the highest level seen since mid-January 2018, having surpassed the Asian session high of $12,919 at roughly 17:30 UTC.

With the rise above $13,000, bitcoin has taken the cumulative month-to-date gains to 50 percent and the cryptocurrency now looks set to log double-digit gains for the third straight month. Further, BTC is on track to end higher for the fifth straight month – the longest monthly winning streak since April-June 2017.

Also, the double-digit price gain seen in the last 24 hours is accompanied by a record $33 billion trading volume across cryptocurrency exchanges, according to data source CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin’s recent rise looks sustainable with the dominance rate hovering at 18-month highs above 61.5%. The dominance rate is an indicator that tracks the percent of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization contributed by the leading cryptocurrency.

A price rise accompanied by a surge in the dominance rate indicates the money is being poured into the bitcoin market for a long haul and not merely to fund purchases of cheap alternative cryptocurrencies.

That is also evident from the sharp losses in altcoins’ BTC-denominated exchange rates. For instance, names like XRP, bitcoin cash, EOS, binance coin and other major altcoins are currently down 10-33 percent on a seven-day basis.

Litecoin, which is scheduled to undergo mining reward halving in August, is also down 27 percent on a weekly basis.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing

Climber image via CoinDesk archives; charts by TradingView