By
Steve Muchoki
April 18th, 2024
Following its sudden drop by nearly 10% on Wednesday, bitcoin price recovers, hitting the mark of $5.667 today.
Bitcoin price is catching wind again the day after its unexpected drop by 9%, seeting a high of $5,725 on Thursday. The cryptocurrency’s USD value struck yesterday low at 14:15 (GMT) before trading took a positive turn at the end of the day.
Momentum stuck on Thursday as trading shot past $5,600 in the early hours before registering a high of $5,725 near 11:00 AM. Altogether, bitcoin price has gained nearly 12% since its lowest point yesterday.
At the time of writing Bitcoin price composed $5.667,74, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
Yesterday’s Bitcoin drop could be possibly caused by a report issued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission which said virtual “tokens” used in initial coin offerings can come under CFTC oversight, a message that a market averse to scrutiny did not take well. “There is no inconsistency between the SEC’s analysis and the CFTC’s determination” from 2015 that virtual currencies are commodities, the CFTC said.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange has announced it plans to launch its own bitcoin derivatives trading products by next year.
Last Friday the most popular cryptocurrency set a new record of $5,856, up six times in value for the year. The news came ahead of predictable splits in Bitcoin into at least two other digital currencies next month. Bitcoin was up over 480 percent year-to-date.
Serafin Lion Engel, CEO and Founder of DataWallet, told reporters: “Bitcoin proves to be an antifragile asset which, due to its characteristics of immutability, transparency, and disintermediation, thrives in a world of ever-increasing political and socio-economic uncertainty.”
He continued: “Comments, such as Jamie Dimon’s, drive the bitcoin hormesis we are currently witnessing, where adversarial comments by renowned beneficiaries of the current centralized system simply add to the strength of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Furthermore, it also simply boils down to exposure: The more people hear that about bitcoin, the more people will adopt bitcoin since its benefits over the past financial system are so abundantly clear.”
“The soar in the price of bitcoin isn’t surprising, and I expect that while price fluctuations will continue, in the long term bitcoin will continue to rise in price far beyond $6,000, especially if you buy into the thesis that bitcoin could become the prominent digital reserve currency. The main reserve currency in the world is gold, with a market cap of ~$7 trillion USD. Bitcoin is currently at ~$94 billion which is less than 1.5% of that. Even if it stays just 2% of gold, it will surpass the $6,000 price point,” added Yonatan Sela, SVP Business Development, YouNow.”
David Henderson, Founder of Sweetbridge, also stays positive about Bitcoin’s future: “A quick look at bitcoin’s price history (the two pizzas famously ordered by a developer for 10,000 BTC in 2010 would be worth about $30 million each today!) shows the challenges in using this as a transactional currency or as collateral, as the fluctuations are significant and frequent, unlike most fiat currencies. That said, it can provide an alternative in countries where the local currency is heavily controlled, restricted and subject to very high inflation.”
Top industry experts, meawhile, continue to predict that Bitcoin price will just skyrocket in the nearest time. Thus, one of the famous bitcoin supporters, Trace Mayer, noted that this coming February its price will reach $27,395. If this is the case, he asserts that a per-coin value of 4.75 times the moving average, or $27,395, would be a “fair” price.
Mike Novogratz, a somewhat legendary figure, former macro hedge fund manager at Fortress, current head of Galaxy Investment Partners, had previously suggested that Bitcoin will jump to $10,000 in next six to ten months.
However, the most shocking predictions came from John McAfee, a cybersecurity and software pioneer, who believes that Bitcoin has all chances to reach $500,000 in the next three years.