By
Steve Muchoki
April 23rd, 2024
Crypto markets turn positive over the news of some big industry giants from the world of finance joining the crypto space.
In the last seven days, Bitcoin’s price movements have been quite dicy and unpredictable as the cryptocurrency was spotted to be trading dangerously close to its ‘death cross‘ levels. According to the Bitcoin charts on CoinMarkeCap, Bitcoin’s price fell from $7500 to a low of near $6600 level before finally recovering back. Bitcoin is currently seen trading comfortably over $7100 and analysts say that it has set its eye for a move towards the target of $8000.
Apart from Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies seem to be doing pretty well in a way causing the overall market cap to rise by $20 billion. At the press time, Ethereum is showing a strong recovery of 7.5% and is trading around $420 levels. Ripple too is showing a healthy recovery just under 4% and is trading above $0.50 levels.
One of the major reasons for the crypto markets to rise is the positive news flowing over the weekend. According to a report from Bloomberg, George Soros – the billionaire investor and hedge fund titan, is looking to enter in the cryptocurrency space soon. The report states that Adam Fisher who looks after the overseas macro investing operations of the Soros Management Fund has received an internal approval from the board over the last month to start trading in virtual coins, reported a person familiar with the matter.
Earlier this year at the World Economic Forum, George Soros himself had criticized the cryptocurrency market by calling it a bubble and has further gone to say that digital tokens don’t represent as actual currencies due to extreme volatility but are rather more of an assets class.
However, just when the crypto enthusiasts were rejoicing with this news, another good news came their way. Reports suggest that Venrock – the venture capital arm of the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation – is also looking to enter in the cryptocurrency space and is said to have already signed a deal with the Brooklyn-based cryptocurrency investment fund called Coinfund.
Coinfund was quick enough to make this announcement on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/coinfund_io/status/982287890976686081
In a word with Fortune, David Packman, a partner at Venrock said: “We wanted to partner with this team that has been making investments and actually helping to architect a number of different crypto economies and crypto token-based projects.”
Bitcoin latest fall has still not deterred he confidence of some of the analysts from its bullish camp who are still very much positive on the future outlook of the cryptocurrency. Marshall Taplits, Chief Strategy Officer for NYNJA, says “Speculation on price is always difficult. However, the trend for Bitcoin is clear – UP, going to about $20,000 USD from zero in 10 years. Each time Bitcoin corrects, the media wrenches. However, anyone who has been watching cryptocurrency since the beginning knows to bet on $30,000.”
Another Bitcoin Bull Daniel Worsley, CEO of LocalCoinSwap said: “There is no other network that has been as battle-tested as the Bitcoin blockchain. It has resisted serious adversaries, and coordinated attacks designed to disrupt its functioning. It has survived all assaults. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the price above $20,000 USD this year. Especially given the amount of negative press which is now priced in, and investor expectation of another bull run, it will only take a couple of positive developments to set off the train.”
Dave Chapman, a Hong-Kong-based cryptocurrency entrepreneur says that the erratic price movements in Bitcoin is nothing new and has been seen in the past whenever any new announcement comes. He says that the recent price swings are majorly due to increased regulatory scrutiny but there is nothing to worry as long as the long-term perspective is concerned.
While recently talking to South China Morning Post, Dave said “Everyone says crypto is so bad, but there’s no difference between this and any other time when people have gone into something (new). Is it new? Yes. Does it need to mature? Yes. Will it be regulated? Yes.”
Moreover, even in the recent fall, it is found that retail adoption of Bitcoin has been growing in the U.S and Canada. Last week, US electronics retailer Newegg announced the integration of Bitcoin as a payment option to its platform in Canada.
Danny Lee, CEO of Newegg said: “In 2014 Newegg was among the first major companies to offer customers a bitcoin payment option. Since that time the value of bitcoin has skyrocketed and customers holding bitcoin have considerably more purchasing power. We believe the time is right to broaden our acceptance of bitcoin to our customers in Canada.”