Bitcoin is nearing the $100,000 mark as crypto enthusiasts bet that United States President-elect Donald Trump will usher in a more welcoming regulatory environment for digital assets.
The world’s most popular digital currency rose as high as $99,073 on Thursday, November 21, extending its surge since Trump’s re-election on November 5. The commodity has risen more than 60 percent since election day as investors anticipate Trump’s incoming administration to ease regulatory and legal hurdles to its use.
Trump, who called the asset a “scam” during his first term, accepted campaign donations in cryptocurrency, and has pledged to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet” and accumulate a national bitcoin reserve. Trump and his three sons in September also announced the launch of their own crypto business, World Liberty Financial, which investors have taken as a promising sign of the president-elect’s belief in the sector.
In another bullish signal for the sector on Thursday, United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, Gary Gensler, who was widely disliked among crypto investors for his aggressive enforcement actions targeting the sector, confirmed that he would step down in January.
Trump had pledged to fire Gensler on “day one” of his administration, though the president does not have the authority to remove the SEC chair before the end of his or her term.
While viewed by supporters as a ticket to big returns and financial freedom, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are known for their volatility and have faced government crackdowns in several parts of the world. After climbing to a record high of $69,000 in late 2021, Bitcoin plunged to less than $16,000 over the following year. The commodity burst past its previous peak in March after gaining more than 300 percent since November 2022.
Tag: Bitcoin
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Bitcoin nears $100,000 as investors bet on crypto-friendly Trump policies
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Bitcoin recovers after falling on news Tesla sold 75% of its holdings
Bitcoin rebounded after a brief sell-off late on Wednesday sparked by news that electric carmaker Tesla Inc had sold about 75% of its holdings of the virtual token. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk cited concerns about his company’s “overall liquidity” as the reason for the sale. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last up 1.04% at $23,494.57, after sliding as much as 0.5% to $23,268.92 on the news. Tesla sold $936 million worth of bitcoin in the second quarter, more than a year after the company bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency at the peak of its massive growth and popularity. Musk has been an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies. His statements on the future of crypto and disclosures about his ownership of digital assets often boost the price of dogecoin and bitcoin.
On Tesla’s earnings call, Musk said the primary reason for the sale was uncertainty about lockdowns due to Covid-19 in China, which have created production challenges for the company.
“It was important for us to maximize our cash position,” Musk said. “We are certainly open to increasing our bitcoin holdings in future, so this should not be taken as some verdict on bitcoin. It’s just that we were concerned about overall liquidity for the company.” Musk added that Tesla did not sell any of its dogecoin, a meme-based cryptocurrency that he has touted. Rupee Gains Ground, A Day After Hitting An All-Time Low Of 80.06 Per Dollar
The rupee gained a touch further early on Friday, July 22, a day after hitting its lowest ever of 80.06 against the dollar but closing out below the key psychological rate of 80. Bloomberg quoted the rupee at 79.8963 against the dollar early on Friday, with a trading range of 79.8750 to 79.9088, after opening at 79.8875. But PTI reported that the Indian currency fell 5 paise to 79.90 against the US dollar in early trade. In the previous session, the rupee had hit an all-time low of 80.0638, but closed out the day at 79.9538 against the greenback, according to Bloomberg.
That was driven largely because of the Reserve Bank of India’s intervention in the spot and futures markets to limit the sharp decline in the Indian currency. What has helped the domestic currency is the impetus in Asian stocks and foreign portfolio investments (FPIs) in Indian capital markets rising to the highest since November 17 on Thursday. The net foreign fund inflows on Thursday jumped to over $1 billion. Fading recession fears on taming of expectations for a very aggressive rate hikes on slowing global economic growth, the dollar well of its recent multi-year highs and a fall in crude oil prices have helped that turnaround in foreign funds flow into Indian markets.
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Bitcoin tumbles as Putin orders military into eastern Ukraine
Cryptocurrencies dropped as Vladimir Putin decided to conduct military operations in eastern Ukraine, with Bitcoin slumping to a one-month low. The largest token fell as much as 7.4% to $34,783 after an initial Tass report on Russia’s decision. Second-ranked Ether declined as much as 8.7% to $2,390.61. Other coins like XRP, Cardano and Solana were down as well.
Bitcoin’s swings during the past weeks of escalating geopolitical tensions have served to undermine the argument that cryptocurrencies offer a hedge in times of trouble. The traditional safe haven gold, meanwhile, surged to the highest level since early 2021 on Thursday, February 24. “Risk assets continue to be weighed down by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tensions. This includes Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies which are currently still very much viewed as a high-risk asset class,” said Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development at Luno, a crypto platform. The next key level to watch for Bitcoin will be $28,000 to $29,000, he said. If that treshold gets breached, “we could be looking at much lower levels in the low $20,000s and below.”
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Bitcoin, Ether near multi-month lows following hawkish fed minutes
HONG KONG (TIP)- Bitcoin fell below $43,000 on Thursday, testing multi-month lows after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed it leaning toward more aggressive policy action, which sapped investor appetite for riskier assets. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last at $42,700, down 1.7%, having lost 5.2% on Wednesday. A break below last month’s trough of $42,000 would make it the weakest since September.
The token hit a record high of $69,000 in November.
The fall “correlated with the ‘risk off’ move across most traditional asset classes,” said Matt Dibb, COO of Singapore-based crypto fund distributor, Stack Funds, pointing to the declines in the Nasdaq in particular.
Moves in cryptocurrency markets are becoming more aligned with those in traditional markets as the number of institutions trading both crypto and other assets grows.
The Nasdaq plunged more than 3% overnight in its biggest one-day percentage drop since February, after Fed minutes showed U.S. policymakers had discussed reducing the bank’s balance sheet at their December meeting, when they also decided to accelerate finishing their bond buying programme.
Share markets in Asia sold off on Thursday as well, while U.S. Treasury yields edged higher.
Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency which underpins the ethereum network, lost 5.2% on Wednesday, and touched its lowest level since October, before bouncing back slightly to $3,460.
Crypto analysts were also watching to see whether anti-government protests in Kazakhstan, which were initially sparked by rising fuel prices, would affect the bitcoin network.
The central Asian nation was the world’s second-largest centre for bitcoin mining, Britain’s Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance said last year. The Kazakh government late last year began cracking down on some miners, fearing the energy-intensive process was using too much power. Source: Reuters
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Crypto king to ‘overtake global finance’ by 2050
2021 will probably go down in history as the year when Bitcoin started to enter the mainstream financial world with an increasing number of global financial institutions, large technology enterprises, and even a nation adopting the crypto king. While Bitcoin will sooner or later come out of the current price correction phase, the majority in a survey of 42 crypto experts globally recently said hyperbitcoinisation – the moment when Bitcoin overtakes global finance – will happen by 2050.
The survey, which also included heads of Indian crypto exchanges ZebPay and Unocoin – Avinash Shekhar and Sathvik Vishwanath respectively, was published this month by the UK-based personal finance platform Finder. The study noted that 29 per cent said hyberbitcoinisation will happen as soon as 2035 while an additional 20 per cent believed it to happen by 2040. However, 44 per cent of panelists didn’t expect it to ever occur. Bitcoin has managed to gain increased backing or attracted the interest of companies and financial entities across the globe such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, PayPal, Visa, Tesla, Apple, MicroStrategy, and more. Recently, the Central American nation El Salvador became the first country globally to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. Others such as Bulgaria and Ukraine also owned Bitcoins, according to BitcoinTreasuries.org.
Even as there could be a medium-term price depreciation, the price of Bitcoin is predicted to increase up to $318,417 by December 2025, according to the panel. “Halving events and inflation along the way to 2025 and 2030 will likely trigger the larger upside moves,” said Justin Chuh, Senior Trader, Wave Financial in the report. “Prices are likely to be continuously driven by supply and demand, less availability for a wider group of users.”
However, panelists expected that by December 2030, the price will go up to $4,287,591 but “the average is skewed by outliers – when we look at the median price prediction, the 2030 price forecast comes down to $470,000.” This is still over 14X from the current price of near $32,000. Nonetheless, 2021 is expected to end at $66,284, according to 61 per cent of panelists. This would be just $2,000 more than the all-time high of $64,234 as of April 14, 2021, as per data from CoinMarketCap.com.
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Bitcoin drops below US$30,000
Bitcoin fell below US$30,000 for the first time since January, briefly erasing gains for the year and adding to losses sparked a day earlier when China’s central bank deepened a crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency dropped to US$28,600, its lowest since early January, after giving up gains made during Asian hours. Its fall also pressured smaller coins such as ether.
Bitcoin tumbled 11per cent on Monday, its largest one-day drop in over a month, with losses of nearly 30per cent in the last week alone almost wiping out gains for the year-to-date. It was last down 2.3per cent at US$30,896.
The sell-off was sparked by the People’s Bank of China urging China’s largest banks and payment firms to crack down harder on cryptocurrency trading, the latest tightening of restrictions on the sector by Beijing.
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After El Salvador, India may move to classify Bitcoin as an asset class
BENGALURU (TIP): After El Salvador’s historic move to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender (rendering it full currency status), things are looking brighter back home in India for crypto-enthusiasts.
Top sources tracking the industry told this publication that the government has moved away from its earlier hostile stance towards virtual currencies and will most likely classify Bitcoin as an asset class in India soon.
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will oversee regulations for the cyptocurrency sector after Bitcoin’s classification as an asset class, sources added.
India’s crypto industry is also in talks with the finance ministry regarding the formulation of a new set of regulations and industry sources point out that an expert panel at the ministry is studying the matter. A Cryptocurrency Regulation bill is likely to be tabled in the Parliament during the Monsoon session, the added.
The development comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in a circular, directed banks to stop avoiding transactions involving virtual tokens citing its earlier 2018 circular, since it had been quashed by the Supreme Court.
RBI Governor Shakthikanta Das, however, reiterated that there were still major concerns that have been communicated to the government on digital currencies. “We can definitely say that the new committee which is working on cryptocurrencies is very optimistic on cryptocurrency regulation and legislation… A new draft proposal will soon be in the Cabinet, which will look into the overall scenario and take the best step forward. We are very hopeful that the government will embrace cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies,” Ketan Surana, Director and chief financial officer, Coinsbit, and Member, Internet and Mobile Association of India said. A white paper by Indiatech.org suggests that India’s adoption of Bitcoin as an alternative asset class is more realistic. Due to the volatile nature of digital currencies (prices fluctuate widely on a daily basis), it pointed, they cannot be regularly used as a payment instrument. The paper also recommended taxing investments in cryptocurrencies, making them subject to the capital gains tax under the Income Tax Act.
Hitesh Malviya, blockchain and crypto investment expert, said, “In my opinion, the Indian government will explore a way to regularise Bitcoin. I don’t think India will consider accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender in the near future because it will affect the position of the Indian rupee. Accepting bitcoin as a legal tender is a good idea for those nations who don’t have their own currency or are dependent on the US dollar”.
Source: Express News Service
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Bitcoin touches $64,000 high as traders eye coinbase listing
Bitcoin advanced Wednesday, breaching the $64,000 level for the first time after eclipsing its most recent record in March a day earlier as the mood in cryptocurrencies turned bullish ahead of Coinbase Global Inc.’s listing this week. The token climbed as much as 1.6 percent to as high as $64,207 in Asia trading. Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks such as Riot Blockchain Inc. and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. advanced during US trading hours. Crypto bulls are out in force as a growing list of companies embrace Bitcoin, even as skeptics doubt the durability of the boom. In one of the most potent signs of Wall Street’s growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies, Coinbase will list on the Nasdaq on April 14 at a valuation of about $100 billion. Coinbase’s debut “will mark the first official juncture between the traditional financial avenue and the alternative crypto path,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote, wrote in a note. “As such, a successful addition to Nasdaq should act as endorsement of cryptocurrencies by traditional investors.” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have announced plans to offer their clients access to crypto investments. Tesla Inc. earlier this year disclosed a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and more recently started accepting it as payment for electric cars.
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Bitcoin is at a ‘tipping point’, Citi says
Bitcoin is at a “tipping point” and could in the future become the preferred currency for international trade or face a “speculative implosion,” Citi analysts said.
With the recent embrace by the likes of Tesla Inc and Mastercard Inc, bitcoin could be at the start of a “massive transformation” into the mainstream, Citi said in a report.
The growing involvement from institutional investors in recent years contrasts with heavy retail-focus for most of the past decade, it added.
If businesses and individuals gain access via digital wallets to planned central bank digital cash and so-called stablecoins, bitcoin’s global reach, traceability and potential for quick payments would see it “optimally positioned” to become the preferred currency for international trade, Citi said.
Bitcoin, designed as a payment tool, is little used for commerce in major economies, hampered by high volatility and relatively costly transactions. Still, it has over the past year gained traction in some emerging markets such as Nigeria.