Bitcoin, after crashing under $30,000 per bitcoin in July, has roared back through August.
The bitcoin price, up 40% on this time last month, is edging closer to the psychological $50,000 per bitcoin level—helped on by the soaring price of ethereum, cardano, Binance’s BNB, Ripple’s XRP and the meme-based dogecoin.
As cryptocurrency prices rally across the board, pushing the combined crypto market firmly over $2 trillion for the first time since May, some bitcoin and crypto investors are feeling confident the bitcoin price could exceed its all-time high of over $60,000.
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The bitcoin price topped $60,000 per bitcoin in April before crashing back to under $30,000. Now, … [+]
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“[Bitcoin’s] still got plenty of room to get the old high,” Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone said in a television interview this week. “If [bitcoin] just follows ethereum, it goes to $100,000.”
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by value, has outpaced bitcoin this year, with its rise fueled by major upgrades, the booming decentralized finance (DeFi) market and the NFT craze—with both DeFi, which seeks to recreate traditional financing with the need for banks, and NFTs, unique digital crypto tokens tied to online media, almost entirely based on ethereum.
The ethereum price is up almost 700% on this time last year, while bitcoin has added around 300%. Other top ten cryptocurrencies—including ethereum rivals BNB and cardano, as well as Ripple’s XRP and Elon Musk’s pet project dogecoin—have made outsized gains compared to bitcoin.
Ethereum has climbed 70% this last month alone, while BNB is up 30%, cardano is up 65%, dogecoin is up 50% and XRP has doubled. After huge ethereum, cardano, BNB, XRP and dogecoin rallies, some expect bitcoin to begin to make gains.
“Bitcoin appears to have built a base around $30,000 that’s akin to $4,000 at the start of 2019, and we see performance parallels that could get the benchmark crypto back on track toward $100,000,” McGlone wrote this month in his August report.
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The bitcoin price has climbed over the last month but it’s been left in the dust by ethereum, … [+]
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Tom Lee, the head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, thinks bitcoin is due a surge higher, pointing to technical trading data.
“With bitcoin crossing above [its average price over the last 200 days], we think bitcoin will rally strongly into,” year-end, Lee wrote in a note that was first reported by CNBC.
However, others are warier. David Russell, vice president of market intelligence at TradeStation, has warned that bitcoin may “pause” after its rally off its July lows.
“[Bitcoin’s] near the same level below which sellers got aggressive [in mid-May],” Russell said in emailed comments. “This is the most significant resistance area bitcoin has yet faced in the current rebound.”
“We believe that the market should take a breather here,” the chief executive of crypto derivatives exchange Delta, Pankaj Balani, said via email.
Balani predicts the bitcoin price will climb over the $50,000 level in late August or early September—”a clean break above that should attract fresh flows and send a strong signal that the market correction might have completed.”