Bitcoin (BTC) soared past the key technical resistance level of $11,500 and past $11,600 on Aug. 5 as a fresh round of bullish sentiment canceled out more of last weekend’s plunge.
Cryptocurrency market daily snapshot Aug. 5. Source: Coin360
Data from Coin360 showed BTC/USD reaching four-day highs of $11,650 at press time on Wednesday, having gained over 4% in the past 24 hours.
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Coin360
Excitement remains palpable for Bitcoin, which has spent the week slowly patching up losses after it fell $1,200 from highs of $12,000 on Sunday.
Fed may unleash “wildly bullish” environment for safe havens
Bitcoin could surge higher if the United States Federal Reserve seeks to raise inflation in a move that “doesn’t make any sense.”
In an address last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell revealed that the results of a year-long review which would dictate future policy could come as soon as next month.
This, as CNBC reported on Aug. 4, would mean the Fed sticks to lower interest rates for the year in order to get inflation to a target of 2%. Annual inflation to June was 0.6%.
As a result, recent all-time highs for safe-haven assets should continue, with gold, silver and potentially Bitcoin all feeling the benefits of the Fed’s measures.
Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told the publication that a 2% inflation target would see “real yields persistently lower, the dollar lower, volatility lower, credit spreads lower and equities higher.”
It would be “wildly bullish” for both gold and silver, he added.
Bitcoin has recently copied the record rise of safe havens, with press-time levels passing $11,600 on the back of quarterly gains of almost 60%.
As Cointelegraph reported on Wednesday, multiple statistics show a surge of interest and investment in the cryptocurrency over the past few months.
Continuing, another analyst warned that a shift to higher inflation would cause more pain for the average consumer and fly in the face of logic.
“It doesn’t make any economic sense whatsoever,” CNBC quoted Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, as saying.
“The consumer is very fragile right now. The last thing we should be shooting for is a higher cost of living.”
VIX trend means Bitcoin stays “extremely bullish”
Summarizing the plans, Gabor Gurbacs, a strategist at Bitcoin-friendly investment manager VanEck, painted a grim future for the U.S. dollar and those who hold it.
“The two options with fiat money is to spend it fast before it inflates or put it in speculative markets artificially propped up by central bank printed money,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Fiat money is not a savings instrument. The average person doesn’t understand this.”
Meanwhile, another indicator of potential further gains for Bitcoin came in the form of its relationship to the VIX volatility index this week.
As noted by Brave New Coin analyst Josh Olszewicz, declines in VIX typically spell gains for BTC/USD, with the downtrend continuing for several months.
“Historically extremely bullish for BTC,” he tweeted.
BTC/USD chart showing VIX volatility. Source: Josh Olszewicz/ Twitter
VIX is derived from the activity on the S&P 500, a stock market with which Bitcoin has historically demonstrated up to a 95% correlation.