Now that Bitcoin (BTC) has paused, catching some breath in the low-$8,000s, it might be time to look at what is really driving this rally.
During a recent Bloomberg TV segment, Erik Voorhees, dubbed “Bitcoin’s Last Gunslinger” by Forbes, did his best to weigh in on this topic, lending his insight as one of the earliest entrepreneurs to flip bullish on the idea of digital, immutable, decentralized, non-sovereign and censorship-resistant money.
A Deep Dive Into Crypto’s Rally
Getting right to the point, Voorhees postulated that Bitcoin’s cyclicity of continual booms and busts, parabolic run-ups and breathtaking drawdowns, and what have you is the biggest catalyst behind this move.
He explains that investors across the board are all coming to the conclusion that the bottom is finally in, and have begun to scale into the market collectively. “Often, these things are a confluence of many individuals making the same decision,” Voorhees elaborates, concluding that the move is likely not the byproduct of a single “whale” or group of large investors and market makers.
He goes on to state that parabolic price action, like what we are seeing now with Bitcoin, is entirely normal, nay, mandated to bring the cryptocurrency space from zero to trillions.
Bloomberg Video: Crypto Is Taking Over the World: ShapeShift CEO #bitcoin #ethereum #blockchain #finance https://t.co/GeaawM9B93
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) May 14, 2019
Some, however, have claimed that this move is entirely predicated off a positive news cycle. In a recent thread posted on Twitter, researcher Alex Krüger notes that “large players” participating in “systematic buying” was what drove the cryptocurrency market.
He looked to “volume, price action, funding, and futures basis and term structure” to come to his conclusion: the move was “not retail driven.” Per Krüger, investors are likely trying to “front run” a series of positive news events.
These include but are not limited to Fidelity’s Bitcoin trade execution service, Bakkt’s crypto futures, TD Ameritrade and E*Trade getting into the cryptocurrency game, and retail chains across the U.S. indirectly accepting cryptocurrency payments.
Data would seemingly confirm this. On Monday, the CME’s Bitcoin futures vehicle saw 33,677 contracts traded on Monday, amounting to 168,385 paper BTC. In a similar fashion, the Digital Currency Group’s subsidiary Grayscale was revealed Monday to have seen its flagship product, its Bitcoin Trust, post $141 million in volume today on markets. Both of the aforementioned vehicles are known to be institutional-centric.
Regardless of what caused the move, BTC is running at long last, and this is enough to get some investors’ hearts racing.
Where’s Bitcoin Heading Next?
While many are divided on where Bitcoin can move next, the consensus is upwards. As Blockonomi reported previously, Fundstrat’s resident cryptocurrency permabull, Thomas Lee, remarked that there are an array of clear signs pointing towards the theory that soon enough, BTC and its altcoin brethren may see new all-time highs.
Lee specifically looked to the following factors: the developments seen at Consensus; Bitcoin holding above its 200-day moving average, a key technical level; developments on the financialization of cryptocurrency (; long-time digital asset “hodlers” and “whales” bolstering their positions; and, most importantly, the idea that Bitcoin has begun to near the “FOMO” range of $10,000. Newfound demand sparked from these aforementioned catalysts should be a massive tailwind, Lee suggests.
Even if Bitcoin somehow pulls back from here, returning to levels at which retail investors have forgotten about the space, one thing is for certain: the industry is now in much better shape than it was 18, even 12 months ago.
As Tyler Winklevoss, a founder of Gemini, explained on Twitter on Thursday, “Bitcoin breaking 8k this time feels a lot different than the last time. So much progress has been made since then and it’s only the bottom of the first inning!”
Bitcoin breaking 8k this time feels lot different than the last time. So much progress has been made since then and it's only the bottom of the first inning! ????????
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) May 16, 2019
And as Interchange co-founder adds, during the last Bitcoin bull run, we didn’t have names like Square (in the form of Cash App and Jack Dorsey), Fidelity Investments, Bakkt, ErisX, and Robinhood all delving into this industry.
