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Today sees the Bitcoin bulls mounting a fightback following the weekend slide.

A large narrative over the past few months is the introduction of institutional capital to the Bitcoin space.

adoption by investment funds, traditional finance participants, family offices, and tech funds, and set new all-time highs in December, a figure that was over 100% higher than its previous value.

Now, there’s a new evangelist on the block, and it’s the former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. In an interview with Jay Martin, president of investment service Cambridge House, at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on Sunday, Harper said that Bitcoin was fit to be counted along with other hard assets like gold.

"We've seen the US dollar trend down in recent months…unless the US becomes a catastrophe, it's hard to see what the alternative is to the USD as the world's major reserve currency. Other than gold, #bitcoin, a whole basket of things… pic.twitter.com/E5atb4qRDf

— Neil Jacobs (@NeilJacobs) January 18, 2021

However, this didn’t mean that the US dollar was losing its prominence anytime soon. “Other than gold, [and] Bitcoin…I think you’ll see the number of things that people use as reserves will expand, but the U.S. dollar will still be the bulk of it,” Harper stated, when asked about the current state of the global financial market and which assets could make it to “reserve” status.

“It’s hard to see what the alternative is to the U.S. dollar as the world’s major reserve currency,”  he noted.

Harper has likely seen all of Bitcoin, at least information wise. He was the Canadian prime minister from 2006 to 2015, witnessing the asset’s inception, growth, first bubble, and eventual recovery in his term.

His comments for Bitcoin as a reserve asset came in favor of the Chinese yuan or the European unified currency Euro, stating that the former was subject to high levels of administrative restrictions while the latter faced long-term uncertainty.

Meanwhile, Harper added that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) were an experiment that was “inevitable” but faced a difficult challenge in terms of governance, enforcement, and long-term viability.

“If you have a digital currency and the purpose of the central bank is to control inflation and create a stable currency and priceability, then digital currency is just kind of an evolution of the marketplace.”

Harper, however, added that if CBDCs were released as part of a series of “wild experiments to the role of central banking” it would worry him “a lot.”

— IMF (@IMFNews) January 17, 2021

Just last week, Miami mayor Francis Suarez announced that he was considering buying Bitcoin for the city’s treasure, becoming one of the first US politicians to speak positively about cryptocurrencies and the formal use of Bitcoin in a hard asset setting.

He said such a purchase could make the city of Miami one of the most crypto-forward and technologically advanced cities, adding that the hypothetical reserves could have already been “200 percent higher” had he taken the decision to invest earlier last year.

Suarez further stated that he was even looking into allowing citizens to pay taxes and fees to the city in Bitcoin, a move that would make it “the easiest place in the United States to do business if you’re doing it in cryptocurrencies.”

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez publicly said he is considering purchasing Bitcoin for the city’s treasury.

The official has spearheaded progressive technology regulation for the East coast city.

Believe it or not, a majority of 2017’s rally that took Bitcoin from $500 to $20,000 in 18 months’ time was catalyzed by retails investors — people like you or me.

Commitment to Transparency: The author of this article is invested and/or has an interest in one or more assets discussed in this post. CryptoSlate does not endorse any project or asset that may be mentioned or linked to in this article. Please take that into consideration when evaluating the content within this article.

Disclaimer: Our writers' opinions are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of CryptoSlate. None of the information you read on CryptoSlate should be taken as investment advice, nor does CryptoSlate endorse any project that may be mentioned or linked to in this article. Buying and trading cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk activity. Please do your own due diligence before taking any action related to content within this article. Finally, CryptoSlate takes no responsibility should you lose money trading cryptocurrencies.

Today sees the Bitcoin bulls mounting a fightback following the weekend slide.

The price of Bitcoin is hovering under $37,000 after the correction from $40,000 in the past 72 hours.

A large narrative over the past few months is the introduction of institutional capital to the Bitcoin space.

late 2020 run has been Wall Street hedge fund runners and billionaire investors going on television to say some form of, “I was wrong.”

Since its inception, the bitcoin market has always been fueled by narratives.

After events like the FBI shutting down Silk Road in 2013 (an online black market site that used bitcoin as its payment) and the theft of 850,000 bitcoins from Mt. Gox in 2014 (an early bitcoin exchange that filed bankruptcy shortly thereafter), bitcoin was for years dogged by a stigma that it is unsafe, subject to theft, and favored by hackers and scammers.

Wall Street investment firms pumped a total $5.75 billion into crypto funds in 2020, up 660% from 2019, according to a crypto inflows report from CoinShares. That flood has boosted Grayscale Investments, the largest crypto asset fund, to $20 billion in assets.

But with maturity comes regulation.

Wall Street firms may welcome regulation as a sign of seriousness, but regulation is at odds with the original appeal of bitcoin to its earliest adopters (many of whom were libertarian): that it’s outside government reach and control, unregulated, no middleman. This push and pull is yet another narrative that will continue and intensify in 2021 and beyond, as the bitcoin investment market matures.

Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and has covered bitcoin since 2011. Follow him on Twitter at trong>Read more:

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trading pairs that pertain to three privacy-focused altcoins: Monero (XMR), ZCash (ZEC), and DASH (DASH).

No point was mentioned for the proposed delistings, though many were quick to assume that it was due to the privacy benefits they enable. Jake Chvervinsky, a lawyer working for Compound Labs, wrote:

“It’s deeply disappointing to see exchanges remove assets just because they have privacy-preserving features. There’s no law or regulation requiring this, just DOJ’s opinion that privacy is “indicative of possible criminal conduct.”

In the wake of the announcement, the three coins targeted by the exchange plunged by 15-25 percent, falling in spite of Bitcoin moving to new all-time highs.

Many thought this trend would continue as other exchanges were expected to follow suit.

But this didn’t happen: in fact, on the day of the delistings were announced, Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss doubled down on the commitment to supporting privacy coins.

Today, these same coins that plunged earlier this year are starting to rally, outpacing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all other cryptocurrencies except for some DeFi plays.

According to CryptoSlate market data, privacy coins are amongst the best-performing cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours.

Horizen (ZEN), a privacy-focused coin, has gained 45 percent in the past 24 hours and is now up by nearly 100 percent in the past seven days.

By a similar token, ZEC, XMR, and DASH have all gained over 20 percent in the past 24 hours. All three are still trading around the prices they were at before the Bittrex announcement, showing the effect the delistings had on the market sentiment around privacy coins.

Although there are some traders that argue there is a technical component to the ongoing privacy coin rally, it appears that privacy coins are benefiting from a global increase in privacy in general.

This morning, Chamath Palihapitiya noted that he is moving to Signal now that WhatsApp has begun to erode the privacy rights that users had on the platform prior.

Many other prominent investors, Twitter personalities, and Silicon Valley innovators made similar comments about Whatsapp in particular and about privacy in general.

Please no longer text me on WhatsApp. Download @signalapp

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 10, 2021

Further demand for privacy-enabling features in technology today could give a further kick to these privacy-focused coins.

See CryptoSlate’s privacy coin list here.

Bittrex announced on December 29 that its exchange will be removing the United States markets for the three of the biggest privacy coins by market cap on January 15, 2021.

Disclaimer: Our writers' opinions are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of CryptoSlate. None of the information you read on CryptoSlate should be taken as investment advice, nor does CryptoSlate endorse any project that may be mentioned or linked to in this article. Buying and trading cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk activity. Please do your own due diligence before taking any action related to content within this article. Finally, CryptoSlate takes no responsibility should you lose money trading cryptocurrencies.

A large narrative over the past few months is the introduction of institutional capital to the Bitcoin space.

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have faced sharp declines over the past few hours despite the move to $40,000 on Thursday.

The price of Bitcoin has recovered strongly overnight, rising from around $34,000 to $38,500.

week, we were told that the 60-day correlation between gold and bitcoin (BTC) had reached all-time highs. Last week, our monthly report featured a chart of BTC’s correlation with the DXY dollar index. A few weeks before that, the correlation with the S&P 500 was in the headlines.

If you feel dizzy from the rapid turns in attention on which correlation metric matters, you’re not alone. But, you had better get used to it because the fascination with BTC’s correlation status is unlikely to fade any time soon.   What this reveals about bitcoin is intriguing. It’s not so much the correlation measures per se – they are fun to watch go up and down, but they’re not the deeper story. The deeper story is why it matters so much to us.

When we point to BTC’s increasing correlation with the S&P 500, gold, avocados or whatever, we are searching for a handle on its prevailing narrative. We hope that correlations will give us a clue.

BTC is a difficult asset to pin down. It is a scarce asset like gold, yet with a harder cap. It can be used for pseudonymous transactions, as can cash. It is a speculative holding for many, like equities. It is a bet on a new technology, like a growth stock. It is a hedge against a dollar collapse, a way to spread financial inclusion, an investment in financial evolution, a political statement. It is all of these, or none of these, depending on your intellectual leanings, economic philosophy and mood. 

The narrative we choose for bitcoin matters, though. Not only does it form our investment thesis around the asset, but it also influences our valuation methods. Do we extrapolate its potential price using the size of the gold market? The payments universe? Transaction fees? Something else entirely?

So, faced with such a slippery narrative, we look to correlations to tell the story. If it’s highly correlated with gold, then the market views it as a safe haven. If it’s more closely correlated to the S&P 500, then it’s a risk-on investment. If bitcoin’s correlation to the dollar index plummets, then it’s a hedge. 

We look to the market to tell us what bitcoin’s narrative is. But this creates a feedback loop (Follow gold! Follow Nasdaq!) that helps to perpetuate bitcoin’s momentum-fueled volatility, and which is often thrown off course by the evolving nature of markets. 

Make it a good one

BTC’s 60-day correlation with the S&P 500 has been coming down recently. That must mean it’s no longer a risk-on asset. Its increasing correlation with gold corroborates that, putting BTC back in the safe haven story.

But wait. You’ll have heard that BTC has not had a good run over the past few days. You’ll probably also have heard that Tesla has had a particularly bad time this week. I wonder if they’re correlated.

What do you know, it looks like BTC’s correlation with TSLA is increasing! BTC is now more correlated to TSLA than to the S&P 500. That must mean that bitcoin is now being seen as a tech stock. No wait, it’s being seen as a proxy for market hype. No wait, I mean it’s being seen as a moon shot. 

Obviously, I’m kidding, but point I’m trying to make is that short-term correlations can tell a good story, but they’re not that meaningful.

Correlations are based on price movements, which, especially in these crazy times, do not always respond to common sense. Prices have, on the whole, become untethered from fundamental factors and are being pushed around by sentiment. Sentiment fuels momentum, which we often mistake for a trend; it also perpetuates the directionality of prices, which can exaggerate correlations.

Yet, sentiment can turn fast when investors are jittery, and there’s plenty to be jittery about. The story changes again. 

This grasping for data to back a story reveals our very human need to put bitcoin in context of things we’re already familiar with. If it goes into a certain mental box, it’s easier to understand and easier to make decisions about. Boxes are comfortable. Yet, in the long run, they are unsustainable.

In the short run, too: These markets are nuts, and boxes are being smashed all over the place. Bitcoin, which never did belong in any box that we know, is hopping from one story to another, as told by correlation metrics.

I like a good chart as much as anyone, probably even more so (after all, I am an analyst), and I plan to continue to watch the numbers stories with interest. But rather than use return relationships as a narrative crutch, I’ll be keeping an eye on what they say about what investors are looking for. 

For short-term market movements, what we think bitcoin’s narrative is doesn’t matter as much as what other people think bitcoin’s narrative is. Other people move the market, so we should know what asset framework they’re using. The correlation stories are useful for that.

For long-term market movements, correlations matter more for portfolio diversification than for anything else. In the not-too-distant future, markets will hopefully be less confusing and even short-term covariance and other relationships might be steadier, and easier to use for planning purposes. By then, even bitcoin’s correlations might start to matter less for the story and more for the allocation calculations.

By then, we will hopefully no longer need to put bitcoin in a pre-conceived box. It will have found its own narrative, understandable by all. 

Investor activism comes to crypto. Technically it’s not the first time, but as far as I know it’s the first initiated by an institutional investor, which pushes it into a more public arena with potentially far-reaching consequences. 

California-based hedge fund manager Arca is stepping up its campaign to overhaul decentralized exchange and prediction market platform Gnosis, which raised $12.5 million in a 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Arca’s complaint is that the project has seen its initial ICO proceeds and therefore its balance sheet multiply simply due to the increase in the price of ETH, and yet has not produced any products that accrue value to the token holders.

Arca insists Gnosis should at least trade at the net asset value of its treasury, which is at current prices $139 per GNO (the platform’s token, which at time of writing has a market price of $67), and that the mispricing is due to poor decisions on the part of management.The investor has suggested to management that it use the bulk of its treasury to make a tender offer for all outstanding GNOs. This would value each token at approximately $90, providing a decent return for early investors. Since the report of Arca’s proposal came out last week, GNO has increased 34% in price (at time of writing), while bitcoin has fallen 4% over the same period.

The interesting part is not the potential flip for investors as they crowd out the upside. What’s important about this is how it changes the conversation around token investments, on so many levels.

First, it will unleash a healthy discussion around responsibility. Token sales, especially those issued in the heyday of 2017, are lightly regulated if at all, with no clearly defined lines of obligations. This discussion could professionalize the field and encourage other institutional investors to take an interest.

Second, it could refine the definition of “token.” Is it like a venture investment, where investors are expected to help their portfolio companies in exchange for greater potential returns? Yet venture investments aren’t liquid, and tokens to some extent are. So, is it more like equity, in which case, do token holders have stakeholder rights? Arca CIO Jeff Dorman believes his firm’s holding is like an interest-free loan, which comes with the expectation that lenders are kept informed of the borrower’s progress and plans for the proceeds.And, third, it could influence investment strategies. We’ve seen the price of GNO jump over the past few days, presumably in the expectation that management will listen to Arca’s demands. Will we see activists intentionally accumulate tokens in order to influence a company’s direction? 

Finally, this could trigger some governance innovations. Apart from investors collectively insisting on more transparency and accountability, we could start to see some protocol or algorithm adjustments. What could investor activism look like on staking networks, where the amount of tokens you hold programmatically determines the say you have in certain governance issues? What if an investor wants to leverage that position to influence more than the protocol had contemplated? How can a project protect itself against predator stakes?

Given the scope of the problem and what it means for the evolution of token issuance as a fund-raising mechanism and as a value proposition, this situation is worth keeping an eye on. Arca’s initiative will most likely end up being about much more than a fair return on an investment. 

As the relentless growth in COVID-19 cases around the world shines greater focus on the bumpy road to a vaccine, uncertainty in the timing of an economic recovery seems to be spilling over into stock market valuations. The S&P and Nasdaq look on track to have their second week of declines, for the first time since March.

Amidst the growing uncertainty, BTC also had a down week, significantly underperforming gold and equities and giving a boost to its 30-day volatility.

While it may feel like stock market volatility is back with a vengeance, the VIX is still well below its June level, and about where it was in December 2018. In other words, this isn’t too unusual. 

Both the latest U.S. unemployment and consumer price index figures came in slightly higher than expected, adding to the overall unease. As renowned investor Stanley Druckenmiller re-ignited the heated debate between those that expect inflation and those that expect deflation, expect greater focus on bitcoin’s narrative as an inflation hedge.

My colleague Nathan DiCamillo shows how we can follow the initial public offering of INX, the first registered offering of security tokens in the U.S., and gives more insight into how the issuance will work. TAKEAWAY: This is an eye-opening peek at the transparency of a security token offering, vs. a normal security offering. You can actually watch the securities move, in real time. That, plus the innovative business model behind them, and the evolution of capital markets they represent, and the fact that it’s the first token sale to register for retail distribution with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, make this issuance worth following. 

Another issuance worth watching is that of Diginex, the Hong Kong-based company behind the newly launched EQUOS.io crypto exchange. This week it announced that it has raised $20 million from four family offices and a hedge fund, ahead of an anticipated Nasdaq listing later this month via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). TAKEAWAY: This will be the first crypto exchange to publicly list in the U.S., as well as an indication of public interest in crypto market infrastructure. For investors, it’s a listed play on the growth of the ecosystem. For analysts, it’s a welcome peek at the accounts of a market infrastructure participant, which could be even more interesting as rumors of a Coinbase listing continue to circulate.

Options market data shows an upward trend over the past couple of months in the traded volume of ether (ETH) puts vs. calls, which hints at a growing fear of a price drop. TAKEAWAY: The bitcoin (BTC) put-call ratio is flat over the same period, which implies that the hedging is specific to ETH. This could indicate greater concern about the fragility of the recent inflows into some decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and the potential impact on the network’s congestion and token price. 

The recent growth in bitcoin “accumulation addresses,” or addresses with at least two incoming bitcoin transfers in the last seven years and no spends, could indicate growing support for bitcoin in spite of lackluster price performance. TAKEAWAY: That we can even extract this metric is an example of the unique data sets available to crypto asset investors. Imagine having this level of information with traditional assets.

Investment management firm Wave Financial has received its first round of investment from clients for the Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund, which it plans to tokenize in a year or two. TAKEAWAY: I include this as an example of how interesting the tokenized security field will soon get. It should be clarified that holding a fund token does not give you access to the whiskey. It does allow you to share in the profits when the whiskey is eventually sold to wholesalers. Yes, this could be achieved without tokenization. And it remains to be seen how comfortable investors will be with this concept. The investment so far is still relatively small, but will be worth watching.

Podcast episodes worth listening to:

already here, but it’s going to get a lot, lot worse. But the good news is, we have an Ark that anyone with foresight can climb aboard to avoid the flood. That Ark …. is Bitcoin. While others are drowning in the flood of currency, I have faith that the Bitcoin Ark, made from math and science, will float and save me from the flood. And, because you’re reading this post, you probably \also have faith in the Ark. But 99.9999% of the world either doesn’t know there’s a flood, or doesn’t care about the flood, or doesn’t think there’s anything they can do about the flood. And interestingly, the more people who get on the Ark, the stronger and more resilient the Ark becomes. As more people get on the Ark, w’ll not only survive, but we’ll thrive. So it’s in our collective best interest to help as many people as possible appreciate that the Ark exists, and that it will ensure they survive the flood. Before this post, I referred to “appreciating the Ark” as “seeing the crypto light”. on June 29th, 2017. I became of the belief that crypto was the biggest thing to happen in the history of humanity, even though I didn’t deeply understand it. So, in a manic state, I started feverishly writing about crypto because: On October 8, 2017, I wrote “” to create a framework for myself, and to help others understand crypto. It was the most read piece on crypto on Medium for three days, but it was totally ineffective in helping people see the crypto light. On May 8, 2018, I wrote “.” It highlighted the problems, but didn’t propose any solutions. On March 6, 2019, I wrote “.” That helped me appreciate that we don’t see the world as it is, but as we are. “” was my latest attempt at creating a Bitcoin narrative (published on 4/9/20, 4 days ago). I focused on “faith” as a narrative. We believe in a lot of things we can’t see or understand, because we have faith. And I have faith in Bitcoin. It was a small leap to go from “faith” to the Ark narrative, which really speaks to me. Will it speak to others? I’ll keep you posted. But also that there is no “best” Bitcoin narrative any more than there’s a best flavor at Baskin Robbins or a best religion ( ). There’s only what we believe in, what we like, what speaks to us, works best for each of us. So I’m going to start collecting Bitcoin narratives. Because I believe if we have more narratives, we’ll have more ways to help people understand Bitcoin, and more more people will get on the Ark. So please clap for this post (up to 50 times!) so more people see it, and please post a narrative below if there’s one that speaks to you. I’ll see you on the Ark! Written by

as the precious metal’s bullish momentum fizzled out and the cryptocurrency market took off.

But one self-proclaimed contrarian investor with a focus on bullion, says that digital gold makes little sense, and compared it – ridiculously – to “digital steak.” Here’s why Simon Mikhailovich’s comparison itself doesn’t make sense.

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto to share several key attributes with gold and other precious metals, chiefly, their scarce supply. The cryptocurrency creator borrowed other commodity-related concepts, such as mining.

Unique from gold, however, certain attributes of a currency were also added, such as decimal places for unit of account, and the ability to send the asset digitally.

The “digital gold” narrative that has emerged since Paul Tudor Jones said that Bitcoin could outpace the then trending shiny yellow metal, has taken the forefront and even managed to capture the imagination of high wealth investors. Many are reallocating gold into Bitcoin, for the sake of putting capital where it is expected to perform the best.

However, one self-proclaimed contrarian investor, claims that the narrative makes as much sense as a “digital steak.” Is his comment a well-done retort, or is he wrong about the rare, digital-only asset?

According to The Bullion Reserve founder Simon Mikhailovich, the Bitcoin as digital gold narrative doesn’t make sense. Or it “makes about as much sense as ‘digital steak.'”

TBR is a private bullion asset manager, so clearly Mikhailovich could be biased about the cryptocurrency that is heavily eating into his business model and revenue.

The comparison is definitely a strange one. As Bitcoin supporters swarmed the investor on Twitter, he began to add more insight to his thought process.

Approached with sarcasm, some users questioned if he was this skeptical over “digital mail” –  a nod to the fact there was once a time when pundits thought email was unnecessary. He said in that case, emails transfer information and not actual paper, referencing fiat money and ignoring the fact that paper money gets digitally transferred endlessly all day long via debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, and more.

He also explained, that “throughout history, private challenges to sovereign currencies have been deemed an existential threat to sovereign power and treated as such. “Everyone can draw their own conclusions,” he added.

There is always a chance that governments could view it as a threat, but the asset was made to be decentralized and operate outside of the reach of state actors. And the argument is weak from someone who knows gold well enough to be aware that US citizens were once banned from holding the precious metal under Executive Order 6102, and could just as easily be at risk.

The only reason why Bitcoin would be targeted by the government when gold hasn’t in decades would be due to the cryptocurrency being viewed as much more dangerous of a threat to fiat currencies that are used to control the world.

But any government banning BTC would be at risk of a catch 22 like situation. Being the odd man out could let other countries garner a larger share of the limited supply, leaving whatever nations late to catch on at a disadvantage if it becomes the global reserve currency.

The analogy about digital steak is incredibly poor, but email is the ideal example. The best technologies are the ones you don’t need until they become commonplace, but once they are, they become everyday staples.

So perhaps the digital gold narrative is wrong, but solely due to the fact that nicknaming it after the precious metal, despite decades of the gold standard, would be selling the cryptocurrency a few coins short.

2018. Bitcoin and Ethereum’s market capitalization account for around over 65 percent of the overall cryptocurrency market.

While Bitcoin has made multiple new all-time highs, Peter Brandt suggested that Bitcoin is redefining the concept of overbought in a bull market. He explained:

“Bitcoin $BTC is redefining the concept of "overbought." Bull markets become and remain overbought. Major bull markets become overbought majorly. Historic bull markets become historically overbought. Red arrows mark midpoints of parabolic advances.”

The latest buying trend has been driven by market participants who are looking to hold Bitcoin long term, known as HODLers. According to Willy Woo, this is a massive bullish indicator for the cryptocurrency. Woo said:

“Latest buying has been driven by participants who are long term holders. This is bullish, this rally is far from done. This is the change in #Bitcoin's supply moving between participants. When more coins move from liquid (active traders) to the illiquid (HODLers), it's bullish.”

Bitcoin’s market capitalization is sitting at over $688 billion, and cryptocurrency trader Michael van de Poppe commented on the recent bull run, saying:

“With all honesty. Markets are doing great and the bull cycle is starting up nicely here. That means that the market will probably continue running heavily this coming year. With the standard 20-30% corrections. Be prepared, they occur. And they are opportunities.”

Crypto analytics firm Santiment further showed data that indicated that public crypto crowds have been dominating the “buy” narrative as Bitcoin hit its new all-time high. Just a day before the buy narrative kicked in, and before its new all-time high at above $37,000, Bitcoin’s crowd sentiment showed fear and doubt. Santiment further elaborated:

“Our data indicates that public #crypto crowds are dominated by people pumping the #buy narrative today with a new #Bitcoin #ATH of $37k being made yet again! This comes after yesterday was all about #sell calls, as doubters were proven very wrong.”

report for the first quarter of 2020. The document consists of 50-pages that tours an in-depth market insights, macro trends, and community sentiment. As this document is far lengthy and can take much of your precious time, we have come up with the key findings and every information of the report in detail. Key Findings: With the start of the report, the report covers that over 35 percent of eToro users have Bitcoin, whereas over 97 percent of users are on the assets. In the report, there is Twitter data combined by eToro partner TheTie. Furthermore, it states that this is a positive investor sentiment as Bitcoin-related tweet volume has reached 47 percent in the very first quarter of 2020 with over 60 percent of positive cases. This recent market turmoil results in the widespread coronavirus pandemic across the globe. With this sudden fall of the economy, Bitcoin’s foundational narrative as digital gold is has also resulted in negative within its first major test. So the report covers that, Bitcoin started this current year as the worst global financial crisis since the fall of central bank monetary policy. Considering social media reports, the analysis among Bitcoin acolytes is narrative enough with the sound. Moreover, from the sources of TheTie’s data, sentiment correlations between Bitcoin and gold have escalated majorly from the last month of the previous year. Whereas sentiment correlations between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 index have been minimum. If we come in the real market world, market data narrates that Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 has reached a new all-time high. Moreover, gold’s correlation and Bitcoin seems positive but it has a lesser degree than its correlation with the S&P 500. Most of the assets are in trend and moving in the same direction due to the stability in dollars. The report covers that with the beginning of economic downturns, most of the major investors are expected to flock to cash and hold across the board. Daniel Larimer Hints At His New B2B Project Without Tokens READ MORE 7 hours ago Four Million Quidd User Login Credentials on Sale on Dark Web READ MORE 12 hours ago Kansas City Fed on Correlation of Bitcoin READ MORE 14 hours ago BitMEX Donates $2.5 Million Towards COVID-19 Crisis READ MORE 14 hours ago Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Implies Return of the Miners READ MORE 15 hours ago Facebook’s Stock Drops 4.5% READ MORE 16 hours ago AVA Launches First University worth $50K READ MORE 16 hours ago

over the past week, falling 4.62% to $1,857. The asset previously had been surging in unison with Bitcoin, which is up over 40% from $28,000 lows last week.

In a Tweet on Friday, Charlie Morris, founder and CIO at ByteTree Asset Management, said that the pullback in gold might be attributable to investors moving to Bitcoin:

Likewise, earlier in the week, CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer said that the outflows from gold ETFs are “all going to crypto.” Tracking inflows and outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin investment trust and gold ETFs back this assertion, as Grayscale has eclipsed gold: 

The moves could be a sign of Bitcoin’s rising status as a legitimate asset class. Gold and Bitcoin have long been linked as both are seen as a way to protect wealth against inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty, but if the price movements over the last week are any indication, however, Bitcoin may be winning the narrative race. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, Coinshares chief revenue officer Frank Spiteri said that the narrative surrounding Bitcoin as an inflation hedge is gaining legs “in the face of a highly unconventional monetary policy environment.”

“It seems like we’re in the middle of a simultaneous awakening among institutions to Bitcoin as an uncorrelated store of value assets,” he said.

The observations from experts come after a unique flippening earlier this week: as of Friday, a single Bitcoin is worth more than a 20-ounce gold bar.

Still, for all the bearish price action and Bitcoin’s ascendancy, certain high-profile gold bugs refuse to budge on their positions. In a Tweet yesterday longtime Bitcoin skeptic and gold investor Peter Schiff claimed that once investors “understand” the inflation risk, they’ll return to bullion:

Wednesday. At the time of writing, BTC is teetering at $37,000 but has tested new all-time price levels close to $37,500.

The 4-hour chart clearly shows that BTC/USD has been growing within the confines of an ascending parallel channel. A break above the upper boundary will pave the way for the final leap to $40,000. However, some delay is also anticipated at $38,000 before the pioneer cryptocurrency makes the final approach to the near-term target.

A glance at various technical levels including the Relative Strength Index supports the bullish narrative. The indicator has recently crossed the overbought mark in the 4-hour timeframe. Therefore, room for growth is still plenty.

Similarly, on-chain data provided by Santiment, a leading analysis platform, reinforces the bullish narrative. For instance, the whales holding between 1,000 and 10,000 coins have increased consistently in the past couple of weeks.

On December 26, the addresses in this range stood at 2,128. At the time of writing, the addresses have soared to an all-time high of 2,241, representing a 5% growth. Although the percentage increase may be ignored for its minor face value, the volume moved by the whales is significant enough to increase the intensity of the tailwind behind Bitcoin.

It is worth noting that the bullish case will be invalidated if Bitcoin failed to break above the ascending parallel channel’s upper boundary. Moreover, if the selling pressure at $38,000 stays put, bears may gain confidence and push for revenge towards $30,000.

Spot rate: $38,865

Relative change: -98

Percentage change: -0.2%

Trend: Bullish

Volatility: High

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included a parabolic increase and a large crash just yesterday.

It’s safe to say that bitcoin initiated a significant bull run in early October when it dabbled with the $10,000 price tag. In the following months, BTC more than quadrupled its value to an all-time high of $42,000 marked last week. However, the asset was not exempt from adverse developments either and yesterday crashed by nearly $12,000 in less than 24 hours.

Such a parabolic price increase followed by a massive correction has raised concerns among some traditional investors, including DoubleLine Capital’s CEO Jeffrey Gundlach.

He warned that similar developments could indicate that the asset has become a bubble, and people need to be wary before allocating any funds to it.

“I don’t like bitcoin here. I don’t like things that are up on a stilt like that. Bitcoin, to me, is now sort of in bubble territory in terms of the way it’s been acting.”

The Bond King is not the only one who recently asserted that BTC is in a bubble. CryptoPotato reported a similar narrative breached by a former Merrill Lynch economist – David Rosenberg. He compared the 2020/2021 run with the developments during the 2017/2018 rally and warned that bitcoin could enter a bear market as it happened three years ago.

On the contrary, the US fund manager and philanthropist Bill Miller, who predicted the mentioned above bull run as early as October, said that the cryptocurrency gets less risky the higher its price goes.

“Bitcoin is a supply-demand story. There are 900 new bitcoins created every day. Bitcoin’s total supply is growing less than 2% a year, and it’s obvious by the price that the demand is growing much, much faster than that.”

Consequently, he concluded that as long as this narrative persists, BTC is “likely to go higher, perhaps considerably higher.”

Just recently, Miller also predicted that corporate funds could start a “torrent” towards the cryptocurrency and said that BTC is a “rat poison for cash.”

Source

series of tweets on Monday, the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks mentioned that only a few digital assets will survive the bubble burst. He showed bullish sentiment for Bitcoin and Ethereum by comparing the top two crypto-assets to internet companies like Amazon and eBay but added that many cryptocurrencies will not survive in the end.

Cuban outlined that the crypto market is driven by the concept of supply and demand and all the other narratives are just sales pitches. In his opinion, ‘scarcity vs demand’ is the biggest sales pitch in the case of the crypto market.

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“Watching the cryptos trade, it’s exactly like the internet stock bubble. I think Bitcoin, Ethereum, a few others will be analogous to those that were built during the dot-com era, survived the bubble bursting, and thrived, like Amazon, eBay, and Priceline. Many won’t. But, If you are taking on debt that you can’t afford to pay back to invest in crypto, you are a fool, and there is a 99% chance you will lose everything. Personal disaster stories are built on leverage,” Cuban mentioned on Twitter.

Additionally, he raised the issue of the valuation of crypto assets. Bitcoin and other digital currencies are up nearly 20% since the start of 2021 despite the recent crash. Bitcoin is currently trading near $35,000 and Ethereum jumped above $1,100. So, Cuban addressed the pricing and valuation issues associated with the crypto market.

“During the internet stock bubble, ‘the experts’ tried to justify whatever the pricing of the day is. Crypto, much like gold, is supply and demand-driven. All the narratives about debasement, fiat, etc are just sales pitches. The biggest sales pitch is scarcity vs demand. That’s it,” he added.

failed to impress as an anti-correlated asset, following the stock markets down on many occasions.

However, there are still arguments both way for the coin. There have been instances where a weakening US Dollar has seen the price of Bitcoin grow as it shows its potential as a hedge, and more recently, the potential end of the Covid-19 pandemic in sight has tanked the price of the coin.

This occurrence shows that Bitcoin is less suited to a world back on track and growing economies. The end of Covid-19 would mean a return to stronger markets and less need for a hedge, and this is shown in the Bitcoin price.

Whether this is enough to call Bitcoin a full hedge again remains to be seen, but its place, and price in a post-Covid-19 world will certainly have an effect on its direction.

On Monday, pharmaceutical company Pfizer, in collaboration with biotech company BioNTech, announced a breakthrough in its COVID-19 vaccine. Bitcoin fell approximately $1,000, over 6%, between on the vaccine news, from $15,800 down to a daily low near $14,815.

The vaccine, however, still awaits final approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration:

“Submission for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) planned for soon after the required safety milestone is achieved, which is currently expected to occur in the third week of November.”

The notion that Bitcoin is behaving more like an anti-correlated asset was further bolstered when, at this vaccine news, the rest of the global markets mostly rose. The S&P 500 spoiled up almost 4% in price at market open this morning.

At the same time, gold, another store-of-value asset, has fallen more than 5% and looks to be falling even more.

The news of a vaccine and the greater implications it could have on the globe and getting back to normal is even being felt across individual stocks.. Video conferencing platform Zoom watched its stock decline by approximately 19%, while Netflix fell almost 10%. Even e-commerce giant Amazon dropped more than 5%. This seems to add to the narrative that Bitcoin is good in a global crisis, unlike stocks and general markets.

during the bull run in late 2017, which saw a significant amount of interest from retail traders.

Many have postulated that this bull run is vastly different than that of 2017, which was largely driven by retail traders making speculative bets on the cryptocurrency.

This bull run is said to be institutionally driven, with large financial institutions including Guggenheim and Fidelity, taking positions in the market-leading cryptocurrency.

In fact, for most retail investors and traders, being a whole-coiner is largely out of reach, given the fact that Bitcoin is now trading at above $40,700.

The presence of these institutions doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no room for retail traders, however, as the sharp uptick in the number of active addresses indicates that some amount of retail FOMO buying is still taking place despite the current price levels.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo suggests that while the narrative is institutional money, it’s the institutional narrative that’s given Bitcoin the validation to encourage bigger retail investors to make large bets.

Willy Woo goes on to say that “Now we have family offices serving the wealthy rushing in needing exposure. There’s a lot of requests for $1m+ buys happening.”

This is evidenced by the fact that the number of addresses holding over 1k worth of Bitcoin has been continuously increasing. Woo explains that this is also the reason why the price has gone vertical, as when many buyers compete against each other for coins, the price premium runs up.

The current bull run is only accelerating, as Bitcoin climbed from $20k to $25k in 10 days, but climbed from $35k to $40k in only 2 days.

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Samyuktha is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto. Currently pursuing her Masters in Finance and Business Analytics, she is interested in cryptocurrencies, fintech, and blockchain technology adoption across various sectors.