Apri has been a stellar month for the crypto industry. Having begun the month at just above $4,000, bitcoin quickly fought to hit the $5,000 mark again. The rapid gains on the second day of the month came as a surprise to many. However, the currency has held on strongly to the support.
At press time, the currency is trading at $5,096, with only a slight change in the past 24 hours. The currency started the weekend at $5,070. And while the weekend has previously not been too friendly to cryptos, bitcoin has managed to hold on.
Bitcoin’s price has been perhaps best supported by a continuously high trading volume. While the volume has almost halved since Friday, it’s still much higher than it has been previously. In the past 24 hours, the volume stood at $9.7 billion. On Friday, the volume stood at $16.5 billion.
BitMEX lost its position as the contributor of the largest trading volume to the controversial FCoin. The Chinese exchange contributed 7.7 percent of the total trading volume with $979 million, ahead of BitMEX which came in second with $772 million. OEX, CoinBene and BW.com were the other exchanges that noted significant trading volumes over the weekend.
BTC Heading to $10,000 This Year
Tom Lee is back on the bullish line of thought that he has become renowned for. Talking to business outlet MarketWatch, Lee stated his belief that given the current run of form, the currency will hit $10,000 before the end of the year.
The head of Fundstrat Global Advisors stated:
Risk appetite is positive for bitcoin. If the S&P 500 made a 2.5 standard deviation move [as it has done year-to-date] and investors are looking for vol [volatility], that’s building a base case for bitcoin.”
This is not the first prediction that the former JP Morgan chief U.S equity strategist has made. However, he hasn’t been very successful with most of his calls. Last year, he predicted that bitcoin would end the year at $25,000. But as we now know, he couldn’t have been more wrong. But it has always been in his nature to be bullish since his JP Morgan days. Back then, he was known as Wall Street’s most bullish strategist.
Banks Have Played Right into Our Hands
While cryptos have unleashed a whole new world of possibilities, banks and other financial institutions have played right into their hands. This is according to Naeem Aslam, the chief markets analyst at Think Markets U.K. Aslam explained:
Monetary policy has become a joke. All it did was fuel buybacks and inflate asset prices and as questions grow about how independent the Federal Reserve is and as we see it run out of options, people will turn to digital assets.
Iran and Venezuela have provided the best examples. In such countries, citizens have turned in earnest to cryptos as they seek to find an escape from the hostile domestic economic conditions. Travis Scher, the head of investments at crypto hedge fund Digital Currency Group stated:
The most stark example is Venezuela. This is the first real example of adoption and unfortunately, when you look at bad central bank policy reaction, history tells us this won’t be the last.