Bitcoin has struggled through August after leaping higher at the end of July.
The bitcoin price has repeatedly tried and failed to gain a footing over $12,000 per bitcoin but is currently stuck trading around $11,800.
Now, as a number of high-profile investors turn to bitcoin amid unprecedented coronavirus stimulus spending, the biggest bitcoin and crypto wallet apps, including Coinbase, Blockchain Wallet, Crypto.com, BRD, and Binance, saw record combined downloads in July—suggesting to some bitcoin is “in the early stages of another bull market.”
In July, the top 10 crypto wallet apps increased net new installs around 81% year-on-year, according to research carried out by app data website Apptopia.
“At the start of quarantine, we noticed an uptick in new installs for some of these apps, but didn’t think much of it because this market tends to be quite volatile anyway,” Apptopia’s Madeline Lenahan wrote in a blog post alongside the data, adding it “looks like the growth we saw was, in fact, real and lasting.”
Coronavirus pandemic lockdowns as well as the growing popularity of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in emerging markets were found to be apparently driving the increase in bitcoin and crypto wallet downloads.
The bitcoin price surge at the end of July, taking bitcoin to its highest level since June last year, triggered a bitcoin retail trading boom with exchanges around the world reporting sky-high bitcoin trading volume.
The sudden wave of fresh interest in bitcoin from both institutional and retail investors has caused some to make parallels to bitcoin’s massive 2017 bull run that saw the bitcoin price soar from under $1,000 per bitcoin to around $20,000 in under 12 months.
“It appears to many that we’re in the early stages of another bull market for bitcoin, this time against a macroeconomic backdrop that seems almost scripted for bitcoin to shine,” Cory Klippsten, tech investor and founder of bitcoin buying app Swan Bitcoin, said via Telegram, pointing to the big new user percentage increases seen by a “new crop of bitcoin-only services like Coinfloor in the UK, Bitaroo in Australia,” and his own Swan Bitcoin in the U.S. which are “all seeing growth through the roof.”
“No one can predict the future, but if the pattern of 4-year bitcoin market cycles continues, we’re looking at a peak sometime around the end of 2021. More people are dipping their toes into bitcoin every day, and the ones that are already here are gaining conviction and buying more.”