Bitcoin investors woke up to a surprising Christmas present after a horror six weeks in the cryptocurrency space.
Bitcoin investors woke up to a nice Christmas present with the blockchain hitting a two-week high.
After a difficult few weeks, BTC pushed past the all-important US$50,000 mark, selling for US$51,144.62 (A$70,800) at its 14-hour peak according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin has had a rough couple of weeks, dropping by as much as 33 per cent after hitting its all-time high of nearly US$69,000 (A$95,000) on November 10.
Since then, the coin has been hovering around the US$45,000-US$48,000 mark — shedding more than US$23,000 of its value.
But the coin appears to be rallying in the final week of the year, jumping by four per cent over the past two days alone. In the last week, it is up an impressive eight per cent.
And as the market leader, Bitcoin is pulling along other cryptocurrencies along with it.
The Coin Market Cap top 10-listed digital assets are mostly trading in the green.
Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain and the second-largest overall, was up basically one per cent over the past 24 hours and three per cent over the last seven days.
Cardano was up by a whopping four per cent for the day and 16 per cent for the week.
Ripple XRP wasn’t far behind, with a day gain of 1.3 per cent and a weekly boost of 11.4 per cent.
Following the news of Bitcoin’s price jump, Bloomberg cited a technical study which shows that if the coin’s value goes up a bit more, major gains could be on the horizon.
According to the study, the $53,000-$55,000 mark is crucial for bitcoin because it is a way to test the strength of the token and could spur another rally.
Bitcoin’s current $51,000 mark is critically above price levels that experts warned could send the price into free fall.
Earlier this week, Bitcoin was nearing a dangerous price level with experts warning that if it dropped below US$44,200, it would be an exponential plunge, depending on how investors react.
Katie Stockton, founder of US investing firm Fairlead Strategies, said that US$44,200 could be a “support level” for the cryptocurrency — which means demand could pick up because the lower price is attractive to buyers but not so high that sellers will be dump their tokens.
However, if bitcoin continues to fall beyond that price, “important long-term support at the bottom boundary of the weekly cloud will likely be tested, near $37,000,” she told Bloomberg.
It’s doubtful whether the support will hold out at that price and could result in a mass sell-off.
Another well known investor Louis Navellier earlier this month called out US$46,000 as a “yellow flag” signalling more price plunges to come.
“I would take a decline below $US46,000 (the 200-day moving average) to be a yellow flag and a decline below the spring low of $US28,500 to be a completed massive double top, which points to a decline to below $US10,000, which incidentally would match many of the multiple 80+ per cent declines in its storied history,” he said.
Speaking to news.com.au last week, Greg Rubin, head of trading at Aussie firm Global Prime, predicted bitcoin would have a huge price surge early next year.
The investing expert reckons bitcoin has one more bull run left in it before it stays at a low price for a long time.
He estimates the top-ranked coin will hit between $US114,000 ($A158,000) to $US130,000 ($A181,000) in the first quarter of 2022.
However, after that, prices would drop dramatically, where they would stay until the next surge.
“Looking at the scale of probabilities, it seems the most likely end to the bull run that kicked off in 2020 will be next year,” he told news.com.au.
Bitcoin’s price would plunge to $US10,000-$US20,000 ($A13,000-$A27,000) mark, a drop of around 70 per cent, where it would remain for some time.
“When the volatility dies down, it [bitcoin] will meander on low volume for years,” he explained.