Xmas Rally? Bitcoin Spiked 50% In The Last 16 Days Of 2020

“From there, you also have layer 2, like Polygon. After that, I would say it’s important to have exposure to metaverse and gaming, especially now that Facebook has made the commitment to rebranding as Meta and going all-in on the metaverse.” Regulation will drive the next inflection point in the digital assets space, said Bank of America global crypto and digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah. “A lot of people view regulation as a major threat to the space. But sensible regulation could be the next catalyst for a big move up. Clarity from regulators would give this huge wall of money — institutions, sovereign wealth and pension funds — the confidence to come into the space,” Melker said. “Next year will be an amplified continuation of what we saw in 2021. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg for both mainstream and institutional adoption.” After hitting record highs in November, bitcoin went into a consolidation phase and dropped below $50,000. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading at $48,263, up 65% year-to-date.

Melker sees ethereum reaching over $10,000 next year and then rising towards $25,000 in 2023. “If you’re a technical analyst, it just seemed that the ethereum versus bitcoin pair was extremely bottomed out and showed plenty of signs throughout this run that it would continue to outperform,” he explained. “But from a fundamental perspective, we’ve seen institutional interests, ETF products, trust products being offered for ethereum at a pretty dramatic rate.” One major trend this year has been ethereum outperforming bitcoin. At the time of writing, ethereum was trading at $4,029, up 447% year-to-date.

Bitcoin Historical Prices

In the following month or so, BTC retraced once more, sitting around 30% away from that peak. Most crypto insiders, which were highly bullish about the year’s end, attributed the recent decline to uncertainties coming from the US and the infamous FOMC meeting. The upside price movements resumed in the second part of the year , and bitcoin managed to break the April ATH firstly in October and then in November. As such, the asset neared its ATH at the time of around $20,000 in mid-December. This is when the moment the entire crypto community waited for three years finally came. Bitcoin broke that coveted line and went into uncharted territory. Nevertheless, the situation began to normalize in the following months. The aforementioned halving came, and BTC indeed went on a bull run in late 2020 as institutions and prominent investors started to get on board.

2020 was a wild year from all perspectives, including the cryptocurrency space. Bitcoin entered it with high hopes, as its third-ever halving, which took place in May, was expected to initiate another massive bull run like it did in 2012 and 2016. New technology is upending everything in finance, from saving to trading to making payments. Other trends analysts are excited about in the new year include smart contracts, DeFi, metaverse, NFTs, and cryptos, such as Solana and Avalanche. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell publicly stated that they wouldn’t ban cryptocurrency in the U.S.

Crypto 2022: Regulation Clarity To Unleash New Wave Of Money In 2022

“Institutions are moving in. To some extent, this is a new asset class with correlation very different compared to other asset classes,” Wood told CNBC in December. “That’s the key to diversification, and it’s the holy grail in terms of asset allocation. The move actually by institutions into bitcoin, if we were to choose bitcoin and that seems to be their first stop, could add $500,000 to bitcoin’s price if they move into roughly 5% over time.” Bitcoin’s outlook for 2022 is $100k+, said Shone Anstey, CEO and co-founder of LQwD, with the next breakout happening in the first quarter of next year. “An important driver next year will be an approval of a spot bitcoin price ETF. There could be several approved at the same time. And we’ll have more capital driving into that market,” Anstey said. This year started on a high note, with bitcoin charting new ATHs frequently. It peaked at $65,000 in April when everything seemed bullish but dumped in value in the following months when China reiterated its ban on crypto and ousted miners.

Last year’s Christmas run-up was one of bitcoin’s most bullish periods as the asset gained 50% of value at the end of December. To prove that bitcoin could remain a viable payment system with the addition of the Lightning Network. “Maybe eventually pizza shops will have their own Lightning nodes and I can open channels to them directly,” he wrote on the mailing list for Lightning developers. Ian Webster is an engineer and data expert based in San Mateo, California. He has worked for Google, NASA, and consulted for governments around the world on data pipelines and data analysis.

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Disappointed by the lack of clear resources on the impacts of inflation on economic indicators, Ian believes this website serves as a valuable public tool. Ian earned his degree in Computer Science from Dartmouth College. Sorry, we don’t have information for one of the dates you selected. This calculator is not realtime – try querying data for a previous month. All prices on this page are nominal (i.e., they are not indexed to inflation). “Ethereum appears to be in the early days of becoming the collateral of the internet and is the epicenter of building the platform for DeFi, fintech and NFTs,” McGlone noted. “Most NFTs are denominated in Ethereum, which means an expanding ecosystem represents demand for ETH.”

BTC was not exempt, and the infamous volatility struck hard in March when the asset plummeted by more than 50% in a day to below $4,000. These are the core obsessions that drive our newsroom—defining topics of seismic importance to the global economy. This graph shows the conversion rate of 1 Bitcoin to 1 USD at the first of each month.

“Consolidation was inevitable after such a bull run. Bitcoin is tied to some of the larger markets and what’s going on with the Federal Reserve. But we are seeing continued support at the current levels,” said Shone Anstey, CEO and co-founder of LQwD. On top of reaching the 90% bitcoins mined mark, bitcoin has completely recovered from China’s crypto mining ban, which saw more than half the world’s miners go offline. The Fed’s more aggressive tightening schedule for next year will keep bitcoin supported. During Wednesday’s December announcement, the central bank accelerated tapering to $30 billion a month while pricing in three rate hikes next year.

Looking into 2022, many analysts have identified $100,000 as the next target for bitcoin. And wider adoption is listed as of the main drivers that will get the cryptocurrency there. BTC ultimately added 50% of value by the end of the year and finished it at around $29,000 – the highest ever. “When China banned mining, it was viewed by the mainstream as a massively bearish event, but anyone who had been in bitcoin for a long time always feared centralization in China,” Melker said. Melker would not be surprised to see bitcoin over the $100,000-$120,000 level next year. “This is my conservative estimate for the next bull run. I can’t put a time on it, but I think bitcoin goes to $235,000, and ethereum will probably surpass $20k-$25k in the coming two years,” he said. Money managers will face a greater risk if they don’t have an allocation to crypto in 2022, McGlone added. “Past performance is no indicator of future results, but when a new asset class outperforms incumbents, naysayers have little choice but to join in. Money managers may face greater risks if they continue to have no portfolio allocations to cryptos,” he stated.

Ark Investment Management founder and CEO Cathie Wood estimated that new institutional and hedge-fund allocation into bitcoin could add $500,000 to bitcoin’s value over time. “Incentivized by China’s ban and the proliferation of revolutionary technologies such as crypto dollars and non-fungible tokens , we expect the U.S. to embrace cryptocurrencies in 2022, with proper regulation and related bullish price implications,” said Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone. Another major bitcoin milestone was that 90% of all bitcoins have already been mined as of December 13th. This means that 18.89 million bitcoins out of 21 million are now in the market. The unprecedented record gains seen in crypto in 2021 will be followed by another bullish year, according to analysts. A new wave of money that is still sitting on the sidelines will pour into the space as regulation around crypto is clarified. The new year will be filled with uncertainty as the Federal Reserve looks to pivot and tighten its monetary policies. At the same time, the inflation threat continues to grow, which means real rates will remain in low to negative territory. Stay tuned to Kitco News to learn from the experts on how to navigate turbulent financial markets in 2022. Plus, the London hard fork has made ethereum a deflationary asset, aligning it closer to bitcoin, meaning there have been days and weeks where more ethereum was burned and destroyed than was mine, Melker added.

But to mine the last 10% will take another 120 years due to bitcoin’s estimated halving schedules. If BTC indeed skyrockets by 50% from its current price tag, it will break the November ATH by going above $70,000. Now that it’s over, BTC could be primed for another leg up, at least according to CryptoQuant’s analyst – VentureFounder. He believes that the technical aspects are still intact, with a “tiny” RSI bullish divergence forming. Consequently, he noted that the general momentum could change swiftly, and bitcoin might replicate the 2020 run. However, the COVID-19 pandemic came and turned everything upside down.

• New technology is upending everything in finance, from saving to trading to making payments.
• “A lot of people view regulation as a major threat to the space. But sensible regulation could be the next catalyst for a big move up. Clarity from regulators would give this huge wall of money — institutions, sovereign wealth and pension funds — the confidence to come into the space,” Melker said.
• Ian Webster is an engineer and data expert based in San Mateo, California.

“Regulation could drive the next inflection point to broader digital asset adoption from institutions, retail and banks,” Shah said. From a trading perspective, crypto’s overall market cap breached the $3 trillion mark this year as bitcoin reached new record highs of $69,000, and ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, rose to a new all-time high of $4,878 in November. Eight years ago, on May 22, 2010, a programmer purchased two large Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, worth about $30 at the time. It’s widely believed to be the first purchase of a product with bitcoin, proving the then-nascent cryptocurrency’s potential as a means of payment. A move away from crypto mining being centralized in China continues to be a major bullish price driver in the long term. “Increasing demand and decreasing supply is one of the primary fundamentals behind most of bitcoin’s bullish outlooks.”

This year, ethereum showed how useful it is when it comes to the digital universe, including the non-fungible tokens , said McGlone. Read more about Litecoin to Bitcoin here. Ethereum’s current support is at $4,000, and this level could act as the key pivot for 2022. Many big institutional players, including the pension funds, have been waiting for regulatory clarity before getting involved with crypto, said Melker. More regulation in the space is inevitable next year, according to analysts. New laws and some clarity from the SEC is a good thing for the crypto space. Bitcoin’s current support level is $40,000, and its initial resistance is $70,000, said Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone.