Bitcoin price crosses the $22,000 mark
Bitcoin's jump above $22,000 has sent a bunch of altcoins up.
The world's top coin surged as much as 6.8% to a peak of $23,000. This is also the price of Bitcoin in mid-June before its continuous decline.
Following that trend, altcoins (other cryptocurrencies) also grew. Ether, the largest-cap cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, is up nearly 11%. Solana also recorded a double-digit increase.
Bitcoin price has been increasing steadily over the past 7 days. Data: Coinmarketcap.
Bitcoin has struggled to break out of the $19,000-20,000 price range after the US Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy and many major crypto lenders collapsed. Besides, the stablecoin Luna (Terra) incident was also one of the key factors causing the market crisis in the past 2 months.
This sustained price rally could create more speculative impetus to hold back crypto assets. Julian Hosp, co-founder of Cake Defi, a crypto wallet solutions provider, thinks that this stagnation could last until the end of the year.
This afternoon (December 17), Bitcoin price according to data from Coinmarketcap.com stood at 22,075 USD, up nearly 14% compared to the time 24 hours ago, bringing the total increase from the beginning of the week to more than 20%.
This rapid increase leads to many forecasts that the Bitcoin price will continue to set more historical highs in the near future.
Not only Bitcoin but many other virtual currencies also increased sharply this year. Compared to the beginning of the year, the price of Bitcoin and the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index - a measure of the price of virtual currencies - has increased more than 3 times. Cryptocurrency-related stock prices in South Korea, Japan, and China also surged.
At the same time at nearly 13:00, the price of the world's second largest virtual currency, Ethereum, increased by nearly 11%, reaching $654. Third-largest coin XPR gained nearly 27%, reaching nearly $0.57.
Bitcoin's market capitalization is close to $410 billion, while the total global cryptocurrency market cap is over $630 billion, up nearly 12% from 24 hours ago, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
As usual, Bitcoin's bull run is causing mixed reviews, as the cryptocurrency's history has been a series of alternate climbs and declines.
Cryptocurrency advocates believe Bitcoin will replace gold as an investment channel to diversify portfolios amid a weakening dollar and possible inflationary pressures in the coming years. Opponents argue that this is just a speculative fever and will inevitably lead to a prolonged decline, similar to what happened after Bitcoin's explosive rally in 2017.
Spot gold price movement (black line, unit: USD/oz), Bitcoin price (pink line, unit: USD/Bitcoin), and the proportional correlation between gold price and Bitcoin price (colored part) green) within the past 1 year - Source: Bloomberg.
However, there have been signs that long-term investors – such as fund management firms and family offices – are playing a larger role in this Bitcoin bull run. The limited supply of Bitcoin, plus the massive money printing policy of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and many other major central banks will pave the way for the Bitcoin price to rise to $400,000/oz at some point. there in the future," Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim, told Bloomberg.
Saxo Capital Markets strategist Kay Van-Petersen emphasized that this rally in Bitcoin corresponds to a parabolic graph, predicting the uptrend will continue, as individual investors have yet to enter the market. the.
Oanda Europe senior analyst Craig Erlam even thinks that the $20,000 mark should have been established sooner. "Bitcoin's price has crossed $20,000, and I'm a bit surprised it didn't come sooner. The Fed's stimulus measures may have helped, but really Bitcoin didn't even need a hit. nudge it".
Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone is optimistic that Bitcoin's price volatility relative to gold and the stock market has now dropped to an all-time low. According to Mr. McGlone, this is a sign that the Bitcoin price can retain an upside advantage over gold and stock prices in 2021. He said that, if history repeats, the ratio between the price of 1 Bitcoin coin with 1 ounce of gold will increase to 100 times, from about 12 times today.
CEO Dan Gunsberg of the virtual currency trading platform Hxro predicts that, if the current momentum is maintained, $36,000/oz will become the next target for the Bitcoin price. On the other hand, if it falls below 13,800 USD/oz, this virtual currency will enter a very deep slide.
Ether started to rebound strongly last week after the Ethereum blockchain development team set a goal for The Merge update, which is expected to reduce the network's energy consumption. Altcoins typically have a higher rate of increase than Bitcoin when prices climb back up, in part because they are more popular with speculative traders and are often less liquid.
Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp, thinks that Bitcoin regained the $22,000 mark thanks to some short sellers deciding to stop. Moya also said that the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies is heating up again as expectations of the Fed's rate hike policy fade.
Bitcoin's recent rally has brought this year's losses to around 52%. The coin was trading at 22,220 USD at 10:27 am in Tokyo. The overall market value of tokens hits the one trillion USD mark.
The MLIV Pulse survey of 950 investors shows that the majority of them think that the cryptocurrency market is not over yet. 60% of respondents believe Bitcoin is likely to fall back to $10,000, about half of its current price.