Have we already seen the top for Bitcoin this quarter?
Having hit an intra-day high of $42,000 on January 8th, BTC futures have been trading between $30,000 and $39,000, with yesterday’s 1.67% gain bringing prices to the top of that range to close at $38,015. The likelihood that we have seen a price high that will stand for some time must be noted. Currently, we have BTC trading fractionally lower at $37,790.
The recent sideways action in Bitcoin has given Ethereum (ETH) a chance to play catch up as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency made a new high on Wednesday of $1,666. The CME has announced that they will soon offer ETH futures, and although that should be good for Bitcoin longer-term, it may take Bitcoin out of the limelight as Ethereum takes some of the fire out of BTC shorter-term.
The truth is Americans and some other countries have largely accepted cryptocurrencies. Still, the world as a whole has yet to adopt this revolutionary form of money—a study published by Bitflyer (a Japanese crypto exchange) on American Vs. Japanese perception of crypto was in entirely different adoption levels. The report noted, “While 76% of Americans view cryptocurrencies positively, 78% of Japanese view cryptocurrencies negatively.”
The report went on to show that, interestingly enough, crypto has now become the 4th largest investment vehicle in America, beating out mutual funds and just behind real estate.
I believe that adoption by citizens in countries that do not currently see Bitcoin as a positive will come with time, which will undoubtedly boost prices in the long-term. As for now, we may have to ease off the gas as far as investing in BTC as ETH made yet another all-time high this week, posting gains of 22% on the week.
So, with these things considered, I believe we may have already seen a top in BTC pricing for the first quarter of 2021.