The price of Bitcoin surged through the $300 mark over the weekend off the back of implied demand due to the debt crisis in Greece that may force the country to leave the Euro.

Bitcoin hit a high of $315.88 on BitStamp, the highest price of all the exchanges, with others reporting figures around $310-$315 range. At the time of writing the rate was listed as $311.04 on Coinbase.

The price of Bitcoin has been rising since around June 7th, when the exchange rate hovered at $223.39, not its lowest price of the year, but the point of where the prices started to seriously swing upwards; Bitcoin’s lowest price of the year was January 14th, where the rate hit $177.48.

Bitcoin price since January 1st with current upswing noted; image credit Coindesk.com.

As mentioned in the introduction, the rise in the price is related to the drama surrounding Greece and its default on an International Monetary Fund loan that was due for payment by June 30th.

The Greek people have been burned with serious fiat money restrictions, including at one stage transfer limitations (banks were even closed for an entire week), and a cap on automatic teller machine (ATM) withdrawals of only 60 euro ($66.82) a day.

No evidence

While we’ve reported both on a move by various Bitcoin exchanges to waive fees for Greek citizens looking to buy Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin as a potential alternative currency for Greece, there’s no strong evidence that the current price rise is being driven by Greeks buying Bitcoin.

Yes, there has definitely been some Greeks buying Bitcoin, but instead what’s driving the current upward trend isn’t those who are, but the sheer hype in the sector that we’ll see a huge rush of Greeks wanting to buy Bitcoin.

People are betting that we’ll see a repeat of when Cyprus was in financial difficulties some years ago, and Bitcoin went from an exchange rate of $60 to $300 in a short period of time, and that’s why the price is primarily rising.

While on one hand it’s good to see the price of Bitcoin rising again, hype and spin are not a fundamentally solid way to sustain a boom in the price, and if and when the spin and hype is exposed by the fact that millions of Greeks aren’t buying Bitcoin, there’s a good chance the price could fall significantly, or even crash.

Beware of stories of Greeks buying Bitcoin, the trojan horse of 2015.

Image credit: 105644709@N0/Flickr/CC by 2.0