The crypto market seems to be once again heating up, with Bitcoin (BTC) flirting with the $60,000 mark for almost a week now. However, despite its bullish outlook, the flagship crypto has failed to steer clear of the aforementioned price range with any sort of conviction, even though it did break through once, albeit for a brief period of time.
Regardless, analysts, such as Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite DecenTrader, and Willy Woo believe that with the Coinbase IPO looming large on the horizon, Bitcoin seems primed for big things in the near term, especially as the premier crypto continues to exhibit seven-day gains of over 13%.
On the subject, Filbfilb recently stated: “We may see increased volatility around this time period of the 14th April. I do think that we are on the brink of a strong breakout.” He also later pointed out that the bears are still in play, hence the volatility may not just be to the upside.
Similarly, Woo is of the opinion that Bitcoin will continue to rise for at least some time before the old hodlers offload their assets to pocket some decent gains. Not only that, regardless of what may happen in the future, Woo believes that Bitcoin will not be closing below the $46,400 mark anytime soon.
So, where is the market heading then?
Recently, payments giant Visa announced that it will allow its users to settle their transactions in crypto, using the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, which is an ERC-20 token that runs atop the Ethereum blockchain. The news has been seen by many as being yet another indicator that crypto is now firmly in the crosshairs of many mainstream players.
Furthermore, just a few days ago, PayPal, too, announced that it was going to allow its customers to facilitate shopping transactions across its 30-million-strong merchant network using a host of different crypto assets including BTC, Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Regarding whether the market seems to be heading price action-wise and where BTC may find support next, independent analyst CryptoYoda told Cointelegraph that he believes there will likely be a further acceleration and a more steep parabolic advance, which will most likely become visible in the near term, adding:
“I do not think that the 65K–73K mark will be of any meaningful significance. I am looking at the 100K–120K zone as the next interesting price area. It is a point of no return indeed. I don’t think crypto can be stopped from here — especially alts will appreciate a lot in the coming weeks and months, which will create lots of interest and awareness for this space.”
Similarly, providing his take on the matter, Antoni Trenchev, CEO of crypto financial platform Nexo, believes that Bitcoin is entering the growth-side of its four-year economic cycle, especially as the global economy starts to recover from the pandemic.
He added that the announcements of Visa and PayPal’s crypto integrations indicate that more upswings are incoming. Trehnchev opined: “Any bumps in the road in 2021 won’t send BTC down significantly — it will keep boomeranging its way back up to the next price stop, and I’d put that at about $75K.” He also anticipated to enter the six-figure range soon after that.
Lastly, Ben Zhou, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, told Cointelegraph that $73,000 is the Fibonacci level to watch if BTC cleanly vaults above $60,000. That said, he believes just a few more announcements in the vein of the Visa, PayPal, Goldman Sachs and Teletubbies news could be the impetus that the market needs to make a clean transition above the aforementioned price threshold.
Is Bitcoin at a point of no return?
With so much institutional activity now happening within the space, many believe that the industry has matured so much that it has reached a point of no return, such that most people have now started to realize the technological proposition put forth by crypto rather than only recognizing its short-term profit potential.
For example, Todd Crossland, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinZoom, believes that mass adoption of Bitcoin and other digital assets is only just starting, adding: “Every corporation in the world is either already embracing Bitcoin, or they are researching strategies for how they can join the movement.”
In his view, as more of the world’s largest companies purchase Bitcoin, as part of their treasuries, and also accept Bitcoin as part of their e-commerce solutions, there will be an increasing trend in the upward direction. “We see a very clear path for Bitcoin reaching $100,000 by the end of 2021,” Crossland opined.
Related: The big $60K hodl is on: 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week
On the subject of whether BTC can ever scale down to extremely low price levels ever again, Cointelegraph spoke with Luuk Strijers, chief commercial officer for futures and options trading platform Deribit, who pointed out that according to the options data available to him at the moment, the market seems to suggest sub-10K levels scenarios have a very slim probability of materializing. “A year-end expiry USD 12K is currently priced at a 6% probability,” he added, to further cement his point.
Also, after the above-stated options expiry, as well as the Visa, PayPal and Goldman Sachs announcements, Strijers believes that the market will gradually move upward again. On a more technical note, he pointed out that according to Deribit’s implied volatility index, the amount of demand for crypto assets is rising at the moment.
Confidence seems to be locked in
According to Zhou, market participants all over the world have spoken and loudly affirmed that they view Bitcoin as a tangible long-term store of value. In fact, he believes that even when there will be an eventual downturn in the current supercycle, BTC’s price is unlikely to drop below the height of its 2017 bull run of $20,000.
This, in his opinion, is simply due to the fact that an increasing amount of institutional money is flowing into this space on a regular basis but also because fiat dilution has been happening all too rapidly. As a result, most currencies can no longer claim their prior values that they were able to hold back in 2017, or early 2020.
To put things into perspective, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic back in March 2020, the United States Federal Reserve has printed over $3.5 trillion, issuing the money in the form of stimulus packages to families as well as in an effort to pump capital into the economy.
That being said, even though the market looks to be in great shape right now, it is still anyone’s best guess as to what the future has in store for Bitcoin and other prominent altcoins. This is because this fledgling sector is still full of inherent risks — despite what the Winklevoss twins would like everyone to believe — with there still being little to no scope of accurately assessing the pitfalls involved with this space. Thus, it’s of utmost importance that users do their personal research before investing big in any project.