Bitcoin Price Sustains Momentum, Moving Closer to $4,200 as Demand Surges
After experiencing a minor correction and dipping below $3,850, bitcoin price has started to sustain its upward momentum, recovering beyond $4,150 and moving closer the $4,200 mark.
Although bitcoin price surpassed the $4,200 mark across many US-based exchanges, global bitcoin exchange market index providers including BraveNewCoin show that on August 13, bitcoin price peaked at $4,163. Hence, today, on August 14, bitcoin price established its new all-time high at $4,195, based on the global bitcoin exchange market index.
In July, prominent Wall Street analysts and strategists including Goldman Sachs head of technical strategy Sheba Jafari anticipated bitcoin price to suffer a major drop in value or market correction. In a note passed to Business Insider, Jafari emphasized that Goldman Sachs sees bitcoin price recovering from a major setback and establishing new highs throughout 2017.
At the time, Jafari stated:
“From current levels, this has a minimum target that goes out to 3,212 (if equal to the length of wave I). There’s potential to extend as far as 3,915 (if 1.618 times the length of wave I). It just might take time to get there.”
Bitcoin outperformed the predictions of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street strategists over the past few weeks. The $3,915 price target of Goldman Sachs was based on a variety of factors including rapid rise in demand toward bitcoin from institutional investors and elimination of uncertainty in regard to the scalability issues of bitcoin. Bitcoin price overwhelmingly surpassed the maximum target of Goldman Sachs and according to Wall Street strategist Tom Lee, bitcoin is en route to becoming the best performing asset and currency in 2017.
In addition to the exponentially increasing demand from institutional investors toward bitcoin triggered by many factors including global economic uncertainty, integration of bitcoin by the Chicago Board Options Exchange and rising popularity of bitcoin as a safe haven asset, CNBC analyst and digital asset strategist Brian Kelly noted that rising tension between the US and North Korea is also resulting in an increase in demand towards bitcoin, amidst intensified equity market sell-off.
“Bitcoin is benefiting from geopolitical tensions – trading in Japan and Korea has increased significantly over the last few months,” Kelly told CNBC.
The impact of the US-North Korea tension on global markets and the cryptocurrency exchange market has been evident, as demonstrated by the change in the market share of major bitcoin exchanges. According to bitcoin analyst and researcher Tuur Demeester, Bithumb, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has become the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, surpassing major trading platforms such as GDAX, Kraken, Bitfinex and Bitstamp.
As Kelly noted, an increasing number of investors and professional traders are beginning to shift towards bitcoin from gold as the ultimate safe haven asset. The portability, transferability and high liquidity of bitcoin have made the cryptocurrency an efficient, portable, secure and highly liquid store of value and a safe haven asset for a wide range of investors.
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