Bitcoin Breaks $13K for the First Time in 2019

2018 was a bad year for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But this time around, things are a bit different. Bitcoin rallied above $13K today. And this week alone, we’ve seen a jump of more than 40%. There are a lot of factors involved why Bitcoin has recovered after it fell by more than 80% from its all-time high last December 2017. But the more recent event that triggered Bitcoin to make such jump is the interest concerning Facebook’s Libra.

In fact, regulators commented regarding Facebook’s Libra. While many think that corporations could influence governments if this cryptocurrency becomes reality next year, there are also those who think that this could make the use of cryptos mainstream.

Bitcoin has jumped by 240% this year. Jim Read of Deutsche Bank’s multi-asset analyst mentioned that “The scale of the recent appreciation is striking”. He also added that “Obviously recent dovishness from central banks has seen investors look towards alternative currencies, but perhaps Facebook’s unveiling of its Libra currency has seen investors look again at cryptocurrencies with fresh eyes”.

For Tom Lee, he mentioned recently that breaking the $10K level means the start of FOMO. And it could potentially surpass the current all-time high at near $20K.

Regulatory Changes

Aside from Facebook’s Libra, which is a crypto project that involved other companies such as Spotify, Uber, and Paypal, there are a number of developments in the industry especially after 2017. Regulators are now targeting ICOs not to mention the noticeable interest coming from institutional investors.

Today, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has been looking into cryptocurrencies. Though Bitcoin and Ethereum were the only ones considered not as securities, other cryptocurrencies are still in a grey area.

Now that regulators are slowly making sense of what cryptocurrencies are, it is inevitable to see a number of institutional investors get involved in the market. In fact, JP Morgan now has its own JP Morgan Coin. You also have businesses such as Western Union as well as other banks such as Santander dabbling with Ripple’s XRP.

In 2017, the bull run was quite different since it was fueled by ICOs and FOMO. It was dubbed as ICO mania due to the prevalence of companies having ICOs in order to generate funds, despite not having a clear plan on how to use the funds or how to have any practical use for the coins.

The regulators later went after ICOs and even celebrities that have been involved in some way. Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled were among the celebrities that have been targeted by the US SEC.

Is Bitcoin Headed to a New All-Time High?

The question is whether or not Bitcoin is going to beat the all-time high? For eToro analyst Simon Peters, he believes that there is the likelihood that Bitcoin is headed towards the all-time high in a matter of 2 weeks. There is even a chance that it is going to hit either $50K or $100K by the end of the year.

Facebook’s Libra is only the start of things to come. We still have to anticipate for the Halvening which could even propel Bitcoin up. On the other hand, other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and XRP are also seeing green.