Bitcoin’s price has hit a new record for 2020, reaching as high as $8,438 before retracing slightly.
At 23:30 UTC on Jan. 7, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization began a strong upward trend from $8,080 to above $8,400 before topping out at $8,438 in just over 40 minutes.
The move to fresh 2020 highs comes after Iranian missiles struck U.S. and coalition bases in Iraq, causing traders to reallocate capital into safe-haven assets such as gold and oil away from riskier assets.
Joshua Green, head of trading at Digital Asset Capital Management – a cryptocurrency trading firm said the BTC rally was a response to the unfolding events in Iraq.
“You are also seeing oil and gold up strongly,” Green said.
At the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.41 percent while the S&P 500 index is down 0.28 percent.
Crude oil has risen significantly and is up 4.3 percent while the spot price of gold has is up 2.19 percent to around $1,608 per troy ounce.
BTC is now looking to cement its position as the leading safe-haven asset, at least in crypto, amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Other notable cryptocurrencies such as ether and XRP have experienced little gain, with XRP down 3.5 percent while ether is slightly in the green, up by 0.09 percent, Messari and CoinDesk data show.