The price of Bitcoin surged to almost $28,500 amid fears of another global financial crash.
BTC is up almost 25% in a week and has a market cap of $534 billion, with the overall value of the crypto market now standing around $1.16 trillion.
The collapse of several banks – Silvergate, Signature and Silicon Valley – seems to be eroding trust in the fiat system, with the UK arm of the latter, a large-scale liquidity provider to the tech sector, bought by HSBC for just £1.
Over the weekend, investment bank Credit Suisse was rescued by UBS Group in a proposed $3.25 billion deal which significantly undercut its $8bn market cap on Friday. As part of the agreement, the Swiss National Bank committed to providing up to $110 billion in liquidity to UBS.
Signature’s deposits and loans are now set to be sold to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp, but crypto-related deposits will not be part of the deal.
Other regional banks in the US are reportedly at risk of failure, leading to fears of hyperinflation.
Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan is so confident that people will flock to crypto as an alternative monetary system that he has made a $2m Twitter bet with James Medlock that BTC will reach $1m within 90 days. Other Twitter users are said to have set up a smart contract with the betting terms.