By
Bena Ilyas
April 18th, 2024
After hitting its 2019 high above $7500 levels on Sunday, May 12, Bitcoin price immediately retraces back to $7000 levels. Analysts call it a fundamentally healthy correction setting the stage for the next bull run.
On Sunday, May 13, the world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) made a new high in 2019 with its price surging past $7500 levels. Furthermore, Bitcoin achieved another milestone with its daily trading volumes going above $29 billion, the highest ever in the history of Bitcoin.
After some massive fireworks over the weekend, Bitcoin is consolidating just above $7000 levels. At the press time, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $7042 with a market cap of $124 billion. Moreover, with the last week’s price rally, Bitcoin dominates nearly 59% of the overall cryptocurrency market cap.
Although Bitcoin corrected nearly 8% from yesterday’s $7500 levels, the overall trend around it continues to remain bullish. In the last one week, the BTC price has given massive returns moving from $5700 levels to all above $7500. A majority of the BTC rally took place over the weekend after which technical analysts expected some retracement.
Global crypto market analyst, Alex Krüger tweeted regarding the same.
Sanity reigned in over $BTC overnight, correcting 11% lower. Yesterday's move above $7000 had started making many, including me, doubt that a strong correction would ensue anytime soon. Cognitive biases can affect all of us.
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) May 12, 2019
However, this retracement only cements Bitcoin fundamentals and gets it prepared for the next bull run.
Bitcoin Futures Likely to Shoot Up
As the U.S. markets open up in a few hours from now, the Bitcoin futures could likely see a massive gap up opening. Note that despite the Bitcoin on-chain activity remaining live 24 x 7, the futures and derivatives market for BTC remains closed on the weekends.
On Friday, May 10, the future market closed on a low at $6290. eToro’s senior trade analyst, Mati Greenspan has tweeted about this on Saturday.
The price of #bitcoin on the @CMEGroup is currently $6,290.
How long do you think it'll be before they open weekend trading on these contracts? 😂😂😂
— Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) May 12, 2019
Moreover, the BTC price hasn’t crossed above $7500 on CMEGroup. Thus the short positions on the futures market are less likely to be affected. It would be interesting to see how does the futures market react today upon opening.
Crypto Market Reacts to The Strong Rally
Experts from the crypto industry have started pouring their opinions after the recent rally in BTC. Many believe that BTC has set itself on the next bull-run trajectory. Antonio Pompliano, the founder and partner for Morgan Creek Digital calls this as an accumulation phase for Bitcoin investors.
Bitcoin is up almost 100% in 2019.
Don’t get distracted though.
This is a game of accumulation.
How many of the 21M Bitcoin will you own?
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) May 12, 2019
In a recent interview with Fox Business, venture capitalist Tim Draper made big predictions for Bitcoin’s future. Draper said that by 2023, Bitcoin alone will contribute 5% of the global financial market. As a result, Drapers expects Bitcoin to touch $250,000 by 2023.
Canada-based investment banking and wealth management company Canaccord Genuity recently published a research note stating that Bitcoin price will gradually go to its previous all-time high of $20,000 by March 2021. The research notes states:
“Bitcoin has started to form the spring 2019 bottom we began mentioning last year, although a close look at the chart suggests the recovery may be slightly ahead of itself. Looking ahead, if bitcoin were to continue following the same trend, the implication is a slow climb back toward its all-time high of ~$20,000, theoretically reaching that level in March 2021”.
Global analyst Alex Krüger states that the latest rally comes even without mainstream involvement. It indicates a bullish trend for BTC.
Bitcoin – A Digital Gold
Morgan Creek Digital CEO Mark Yusko has again sparked up the discussion that Bitcoin can replace gold as a store-of-value in the future. During a recent interview with BloxLive TV, Yusko said that Bitcoin could touch $500,000 in the future. Yusko cites some major reasons increasing demand, scarce supply, and other BTC advantage for it to be the next gold alternative.
Furthermore, the ability to easily transfer Bitcoin and dividing it into smaller parts makes it more convenient asset to trade over gold. Currently, there are over $7.4 trillion worth gold reserves in the world. Yusko said:
“So if we get the amount of value in total Bitcoin market value or network value equal to gold, that’d be about $7.4 trillion divided by 21 million coins, although there aren’t really 21 million left, and you get around $400,000 a coin, maybe $500,000 a coin. Now, when does that happen? It’s probably over a decade or maybe even more”.
Yusko also points out that the availability for BTC tokens will be below its maximum 21 million tokens. This is because nearly 23% of investors have lost their private keys. It means nearly 4 million BTC tokens are out of circulation. This leaves the available Bitcoin in circulation to 17 million assuming no more BTC tokens are lost.
With the shortage in supply, Yusko expects the price of BTC to surge ahead and even go to $500,000 per token.