Bitcoin (BTC) rallied Thursday on high volumes, trading above $10,000 for the first time since Feb. 24 late in the day.
The bellwether cryptocurrency surged nearly 7% in 24 hours to $10,071 as of 23:47 UTC (7:47 pm EDT), with most of those gains made in the last 12 hours. The price was flitting on both sides of the $10,000 threshold as of press time.
The rally means investors who purchased bitcoin at the beginning of the year would now be up almost 40% on their investment. The rise comes after a massive crypto market selloff in March, as the economic fallout from COVID-19 battered both traditional and new, alternative financial markets. As of press time, the S&P 500 stock index is still down 10% year-to-date.
With Bitcoin rallying to test $10,000, Cointelegraph reached out to several top crypto analysts to get their take on what the halving means for Bitcoin’s price.
Ahead of Bitcoin’s third halving early next week, the markets have rallied to test the crucial $10,000 zone.
While the halving has historically been seen as a catalyst for major shifts toward bullish momentum in the markets, Bitcoin enters this halving amid a global climate of extreme economic uncertainty, and on the back of a nearly 150% gain over less than two months.
Some analysts offer a cautious outlook
“This Bitcoin halving will certainly be different to the last,” stated Ontology co-founder Andy Ji, adding: “Bitcoin and the crypto industry now face new challenges as current trends such as de-globalization and COVID-19 impact the world.”
Ji asserts that we can be “cautiously optimistic about the Bitcoin Halving in relation to price,” arguing that as the “news that the Bitcoin halving is happening is widely known, it’s less likely that it will drive price upwards as much as it did the last time.”
Chinese Bitcoin (BTC) miners' share in Bitcoin's hashrate, or the computational power of the network, shrunk this year when hashrate jumped by 25%, while the US returned to second place, according to the Bitcoin Mining Map created by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCFAF).
The map shows the approximate geographic distribution of global Bitcoin hashrate, explain the authors, with the average hashrate share by country displayed in monthly intervals starting from September 2019. The data is provided by mining pools BTC.com, Poolin, and ViaBTC. The CCFAF is a part of Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
The charts show that, China still had by far the largest average monthly share of total hashrate in the first four months of this year - a whopping 69%. Xinjiang provice leads in the country, taking 36% of this number. This total number, however, is almost 5 percentage points lower than the previous four months (September-December 2019), which marked 74%. Only in April, it stood at 65% and was around 8 percentage points lower than in January this year.
The Bitcoin mining map
This year, Bitcoin hashrate increased by around 25%, to 119 TH/s.
Paul Tudor Jones, a pioneer of the modern hedge fund industry, is ready to bet on bitcoin’s price as an inflation hedge.
Jones’ Tudor BVI Global Fund, managed by Tudor Investment Corp., has been authorized to hold as much as “a low single-digit percentage exposure percentage" of its assets in bitcoin futures, according to a note sent to investors this month. The firm manages $38 billion, of which $22 billion is in the flagship BVI fund. Bloomberg News reported the disclosure earlier Thursday.
It is not clear from the letter whether Tudor's fund has begun buying futures, what kind (physically delivered or cash-settled), on which exchange it would do so or whether it plans to also trade the underlying commodity. Reached by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for Tudor had no immediate comment.
ranian lawmakers have reportedly approved a plan to slash four zeros from the national currency, the rial, which has been falling sharply in value amid chronic inflation and the U.S. sanctions. The official currency will also be replaced. Economists are skeptical about how the changes will affect the Iranian economy.
Cutting 4 Zeros From the Rial
The Iranian parliament has reportedly passed a bill to allow the government to cut four zeros from the national currency, the rial. The country’s weak currency and persistently high inflation have led to street protests since late 2017. According to Iran’s Students News Agency ISNA, a major news agency in the country:
The bill to remove four zeros from the national currency was approved by lawmakers.
Ali Rabiei, a spokesperson for the government of Iran, said in a tweet, “Eliminating the four zeros is a necessary action to simplify financial transactions.” According to reports, the Guardian Council of the Constitution is expected to ratify the law before it can take effect. Iran’s state TV noted that the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) will have two years to implement the changes — removing rials from circulation and issuing tomans instead.
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@cryptopassionHere is the chart of my last analysis :
Here is the current chart :
As I was saying you, I was expecting a more powerfull move after the break of the 9000$ and we experienced it today. We even almost tested the resistance line at 10k and it will be now the next objective to break ! We have exciting moments front of us !
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