Tag: BTC

Good Weekly Start for Bitcoin as It Tops $9000 Mark

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Bitcoin’s forward trajectory has continued with the cryptocurrency’s dollar price rising above the $9000 mark – as of today, it stands at $9730 as it draws closer to the $10,000 region. This should come as no surprise as Bitcoin has gained a lot of popularity by breaching its all-time highs month after month. The price surge is expected to continue and maintain a similar trend as we approach 2018. This year, 2017, has been a particularly great year for Bitcoin in regards to its value. What began as a $1000-mark breach back in January marked the onset of the currency’s best year.

Is Bitcoin Liquidity Increasing?

In just two weeks or less, Bitcoins’ price has shot up from less than $7800 to over $9060, a surge that has caused a significant increase in its trading volume from about $2 billion to over $4.6 billion. This makes Bitcoin more liquid than even the most liquid stock in the world, a title that was previously held by Apple. Furthermore, Bitcoin now processes more trades than the major stock markets in the world like KOSDAQ in South Korea. As major financial institutions like the Man Group, a $95 billion hedge fund, participate in strictly regulated Bitcoin exchanges in the coming weeks, the price of Bitcoin might surpass $10,000 sooner than anticipated. In fact, financial firms like StandPoint and Wall Street analysts have already set new highs for Bitcoin’s interim price target moving it up from the previous $10,000 to $14,000.

According to StandPoint founder Ronnie Moas, “There have been many positive developments during the last five months and a few of the obstacles that were in Bitcoin’s way have been knocked down.”

Bitcoin mining is now more profitable than it has ever been in its 9-year life – only 4.3 million Bitcoins are left to mine as nearly 75 percent of the decentralized currency has already been mined and is used in the over 250,000 daily transactions on the network.

New USD Highs as Bitcoin Bull-Run Primes Altcoin Markets

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After recently establishing an all-time high of nearly $8400, Bitcoin has currently consolidated above $8000 a situation that has resulted in a liquidity shift towards the general altcoin markets. The outcome has been in favor of several of the major altcoins which have recorded very high dollar values even though the prices, when compared to Bitcoin’s value, can be considered to be relatively modest. For instance, Ethereum recorded a new all-time high value of about $420 with the prices stabilizing well above the $400 mark.

At the time of this writing, one Bitcoin is equivalent to about $8140 after it set a new record after establishing a new all-time high value of approximately $8380. Also, Bitcoins current total market capitalization stands significantly above $136 billion – the 24-hour trading volume is also well over $4 billion. This reasserts the market dominance that Bitcoin currently enjoys – it sits at 53.1% which, however, represents a 5% drop from its value a week ago.

Mark Keiser, host of Russia Today’s ‘Keiser Report’ anticipates that the price of Bitcoin is likely to soar from its current $8000 Value to new highs of about $100,000. While it is certainly still too early to tell how his predictions will play out, he has continued to express his confidence in the cryptocurrency’s market dominance saying that;

“Hundreds of obituaries have been written about bitcoin and none of them have come true and none will. Fact is, bitcoin is a gift from God to help humanity sort out the mess it has made with its money.”

November has not been a very good month for Bitcoin – its markets fell by approximately 28% shortly after attaining the preceding all-time high of $7890. This represents Bitcoins largest red weekly candle since its inception. Nonetheless, after dropping to its $5450 all-time low, Bitcoin rapidly regained its momentum and recovered to produce its largest weekly candle when it broke above the $8000 mark.

The Story Behind the Rise and Fall of Bitcoin Cash

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“Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash will coexist and serve different cases, just like Bitcoin and Ethereum. It is not a zero-sum game. Work on building your project, not on destroying the other,” that was what Bitcoin and security expert, Andreas Antonopoulos had to say to affirm the fact that Bitcoin Cash indeed has a market share based on its ability to serve immediate payments and short-term scaling. This comes after Xapo president Ted Rogers declared that the recent price trend exhibited by the cryptocurrency was not sustainable. But where did this all start?

In an unexpected twist, Bitcoin Cash soared to an all-time high price of $2800 on November 12 – a situation that made the three-month-old cryptocurrency the sole beneficiary of the SegWit2x hard fork cancellation. Nevertheless, this glorious achievement was short-lived with Bitcoin Cash struggling to sustain the upward momentum of its price which eventually dropped to $1100 in just a couple of days. Luckily for Bitcoin Cash users and traders, the price has stabilized at around $1110 as of now.

The collapse of the SegWit2x plan that was potentially the main cause for the dramatic pump in Bitcoin Cash’s price has been attributed to the lack of consensus among Bitcoin community members. There have been varying opinions regarding the future of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash with some still portraying an element of optimism while others expecting worse scenarios considering the over 50% retrace that the currency experienced earlier. The high prices of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, have attracted millions of users who may or may not be savvy with the concepts revolving around these. The result, especially among the less savvy cryptocurrency users has culminated in the form of confusion which makes matters even worse. In fact, some cannot even tell the difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash – which leads us to the unpleasant reality that awaits. So, what can we expect?

According to Auxesis Group chairman and Cashaa founder Kumar Gaurav, “The quick rise [of BCH] from around 600 to 2400 USD in a few days makes it look like a typical artificial pump which was already being followed by a dump back to $1300 USD within 30 min. As compared to the FX market, the crypto market is still small, it is easy to do that and cannot be used to estimate the future of BTC vs BCC.” He further adds that unlike Bitcoin which has already surpassed a lot of expectations, Bitcoin Cash still has a long way to go before its growth in the long term can be estimated.

Divergent opinions suggest that there is still room for both flavors of Bitcoin to co-exist thanks to the increasing number of cryptocurrency users. In Hoskinson’s words, “Bitcoin Cash seems to be a productive split with its existence neither threatening Bitcoin’s nor requiring support from Bitcoin’s remaining adherents. Now Bitcoin is free to provide its small-block vision and cash the large block. My hope is that this will reduce fighting in the long run as both sides realize that the other isn’t going away. Just like we did with Ethereum and Ethereum classic.”