bitcoin (btc-USD) closed down 2.1% for the week after a streak of triple weekly gains, but it's worth noting that the benchmark crypto has closed above the $50,000 level every day since the Valentine's Day.
During the week, the world's oldest The cryptocurrency rose as much as 1.5% to hit a high of $52,945.05. It is expected to end the week at around $51,076.44, according to data from Yahoo Finance, compared to $52,160.20 last Friday.
The digital currency surpassed the $50,000 level on February 13 for the first time since December 2021. It witnessed a slight decline later in the day and even closed below the milestone. But since February 14, it has ended every day above that mark, indicating a bull run.
The positive crypto sentiment has strengthened further later as hoarders eagerly await the much-awaited halving event, which is expected to occur in April. Halving is a process where bitcoin mining is cut in half, reducing the number of new bitcoins released to the market. The last halving occurred on May 11, 2020 and the reward for mining a btc block fell from 12.5 to 6.25.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tom Lee, managing partner at Fundstrat Global Advisors, made a bold move and said bitcoin could rise as high as $150k by the end of the year.
“I think (bitcoin), you know, could cost up to $150,000,” Lee said in an interview on CNBC. “Demand improves with the ETF and supply reduces… and if monetary policy eases, which we expect, that supports risk assets and Bitcoins hold up and I want to say that is another reason why not” . “I don’t think a reduction is going to start so soon.”
Finding Alpha contributor Clem Chambers said in his February 14 report that bitcoin's upcoming halving event has the potential to push it to $120k.
“bitcoin appears to be making a classic breakout as the April 19 halving approaches, so it's not great to suggest that the market should adjust to this bullish time horizon and start recovering. The next stop if the breakout becomes vertical is $60,000, a mere jump for the explosive bitcoin. While this type of price movement may seem far-fetched, it is nothing for a volatile instrument like bitcoin, and to put it in context, if a Nasdaq stock went from $470 to $600, “It wouldn't cause much of a stir. Likewise, if you scale Meta's performance over the past 18 months, a bitcoin surge to $120,000 doesn't seem far-fetched at all,” Chambers wrote.
bitcoin price action: -0.8% at $51,129.08 as of 2:24 p.m. ET on Friday; +113.4% in the last 12 months; and +15.6% so far in 2024.
The total crypto market capitalization currently stands at $1.96 trillion, down 0.8% from Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.
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