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One bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin, but its price relative to fiat currencies is an important indicator of how much people around the world value the opportunity to opt out of their legacy systems and begin transacting and storing value in a permissionless alternative. As the price of BTC rises relative to dollars, yen or rubles, it’s clear that the people living under these fiat economies feel they have reason to transition, at least partially, to Bitcoin.
Though it’s still far off from its all-time USD high of $19,783 reached in January 2017 (it’s closing in on $14,000 at the time of this writing), the bitcoin price has hit its highest mark ever in exchange for the Brazillian real, the Turkish lira, the Argentine peso, the Venezuelan bolívar and several other worldwide currencies in the last 30 days.
For many of us, the BTC price relative to USD is the default metric measuring its perceived value. But the fact that bitcoin has eclipsed its all-time highs in these other fiat currencies is an important indicator of: a) issues within these fiat systems and b) the value that people around the world are putting into bitcoin as the alternative of choice to these issues.
As cryptocurrency analyst Jason Deane explained in his recent coverage[2] of these price milestones, the fact that BTC/lira has hit an all-time high, while BTC/USD has not, indicates that the lira’s purchasing power against the world reserve fiat currency has weakened.
“There’s a number of reasons for this, but the main two are probably due to a consistent high inflation rate (16.33% in
