Bitcoin traders and investors have been nervously eyeing markets over recent days, with uncertainty on the rise after bitcoin decoupled from the stock market last week.
The bitcoin price, up a staggering 50% on the last six months, looks set to close out 2020 as one of the year’s best performing assets. Bitcoin spiked to just over $14,000 per bitcoin late last month for the first time since the great 2017 bitcoin bubble popped in January 2018.
Now, the bitcoin price has added 4% over the last 24 hours, rocketing back over $14,000 and again following traditional markets that jumped earlier today, with bulls firmly in control ahead of the U.S. election polls closing.
“We seem to be well in the green across the board right now both in terms of markets and crypto and it’s hard to tell where this [rally over $14,000 per bitcoin] is coming from exactly, but it seems logical that the election must be playing a part,” Jason Deane, an analyst at market advisory firm Quantum Economics, said via Telegram.
“Early sentiment is of a Biden victory which could point to expectation of getting a significant coronavirus stimulus passed quickly. In that scenario, bitcoin is little more than a passenger on a wave of positivity driving price discovery, rather than the fundamentals which, although strong, become a secondary consideration in that context.”
Others in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community are confident that the bitcoin price will climb whoever takes the White House in coming days.
“Regardless of who wins, the forecast is for more quantitative easing and stimulus, continuing the favorable conditions for hard assets like bitcoin,” Cory Klippsten, the chief executive of bitcoin-buying app Swan Bitcoin, said via Telegram, adding that “everything in the macro environment points to great opportunity for a major bitcoin bull market.”
Bitcoin, with a fixed supply of just 21 million bitcoin tokens, has found fresh support this year as a hedge against the inflation some investors see on the horizon due to unprecedented government spending and stimulus measures designed to offset the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
The recent bitcoin price rally has reinvigorated the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, with many celebrating a raft of major developments.
“There just aren’t many sellers left. It feels like every time there’s the slightest dip lately, it just gets bought up,” Klippsten said, pointing to MicroStrategy MSTR +3.2% kicking off a wave of publicly-listed companies adding bitcoin to their books, payments giant PayPal PYPL -4.2% rolling out bitcoin-buying and spending services, and recent upgrades to the bitcoin network as fostering a “bullish” bitcoin ecosystem.