Bitcoin jumps 5.8pc to $81,028: Rs 2.25 crore a coin as bond yields spike

Bitcoin hit $81,028 at the Wall Street open on Friday, up 5.76 percent on the day and its highest level of the week. Ethereum followed, up 5.65 percent to $2,601.94. Roughly $250 million of short positions were liquidated across crypto markets in four hours.

At today's interbank dollar rate of Rs 277.28, one Bitcoin is worth about Rs 2.25 crore. Ethereum works out to roughly Rs 721,000 a coin.

What moved it

Two things, and neither is a crypto story.

The first is oil. Supply disruption in the Gulf has cut flows by about 13.1 million barrels a day, and crude swung between $94.80 and around $98 through the session. That is the same disruption pushing Pakistani diesel above Rs 424 a litre.

The second is the US bond market's reaction to it. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.34 percent, up 90 basis points. Higher long yields normally hurt assets that pay no income, and Bitcoin pays none. It rose anyway, which points to positioning rather than fundamentals: traders were short into the move, the move went against them, and the squeeze did the rest.

The Bank of Japan's rate rise to 1.25 percent earlier in the week, which markets had almost fully priced, has not produced the carry-trade unwind that earlier Japanese hikes did.

Analysts flag $82,000 as the next resistance. Bitcoin has reclaimed its True Market Mean at $76,660 and is trading above the $80,500 average cost of corporate treasury holdings.

What it means for a Pakistani holder

Most people here holding crypto bought it in dollars through a peer-to-peer trade, so a rupee position moves on two things at once: the coin price and the dollar. The rupee has been steady, at Rs 277.28 today against Rs 277.51 yesterday, so essentially all of this week's rupee gain is the coin, not the currency.

The legal position has not changed. The State Bank has not authorised banks or payment institutions to process cryptocurrency transactions, and no exchange is licensed to operate here. That leaves buyers in the peer-to-peer market, where the counterparty risk is the whole risk: there is no regulator to complain to, and an account that receives funds from a P2P trade can be frozen if those funds are traced to fraud. The SBP's warning this week about mistaken-transfer scams applies directly to how P2P crypto deals are settled.

A squeeze of this kind cuts both ways. The same thin positioning that produced a 5.8 percent day can produce one in the opposite direction, and a P2P seller cannot exit at 3am the way an exchange account can.

Where to watch the numbers

We track the daily close on our Bitcoin price page and Ethereum page, and the rupee on the dollar rate page. To convert a dollar figure into rupees at today's rate, use the currency converter.

Nothing here is investment advice. Crypto is not a regulated product in Pakistan and a position can lose its entire value.