On February 19, Bitcoin became one of the most valuable trading instruments in the world as its bullish price pushed it over the $56,000 level and its market capitalization climbed to one trillion dollars. While its value has been driven up by the speculative surge in its price, the overall trend is an upward one, and it can no longer be dismissed as a flight-to-safety event provoked by investors staying away from Wall Street during times of market uncertainty.

The record-high exchange price of Bitcoin was expected by some market analysts, and it certainly has come a long way when you consider that the value of the currency was $2,500 in May 2016. Bitcoin's high price and long duration are seen as very good news by some of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges out there. One of them, Binance, is seeing its volume grow a lot faster than expected, and exchange managers have scaled their data center capacity to accommodate demand and heavy trading volumes.

Not even traders of Bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were ready for $56K pricing levels, and now there are quite a few banks and Wall Street money management firms offering custody services for digital currency holders. During a 24 hour period, the social media chatter related to Bitcoin increased by nearly 40%, and the volume of Twitter updates may reach a record high level over the next few days.

As can be imagined, the prospect of Bitcoin staying at this pricing level for a sustained period is unknown. A couple of years ago, a further price increase would have been considered highly unlikely, but we are living in unlikely times. While we can certainly expect that many active traders will soon get busy and liquidate their positions in order to collect profits, fans of technical analysis are predicting that support levels could develop at $55K.

With the final week of February approaching, Wall Street investors seem to be very cautious, and this could drive more attention to Bitcoin trading, particularly during the weekend, and the sentiment building around the prospect of BTC/USD reaching $60K has grown substantially.