There was a time during those heady days of 2017 when one could expect would be breathless coverage around every Bitcoin surge (including right here on this site), but as crypto investors continue to lick their wounds from last year’s brutal crash in the market, it’s apparently going to take more than modest price movements to get people excited.
So, after Bitcoin climbed past $4,000 on Monday – going as high as $4,063 and rising 5.95 percent over the last seven days, according to CoinDesk – the reaction from analysts was mostly meh. As investors look for signs that Bitcoin is pulling out of a sustained bear market, the push past $4,000 is mostly being seen as a blip.
The Bitcoin price uptick could either be the result of “crypto whales” transferring money or a drop in market liquidity, a couple of theories floated by Mati Greensapan, senior market analyst at eToro. In other words, Greenspan sees this as being a possible one-time market move – while also pointing out that $4,000 isn’t exactly a milestone for Bitcoin.
Good to see Bitcoin holding above $4,000…. but this was never really a significant level to begin with.
The current range that we're in is between 3k & 5k, so 4k is just the halfway mark. Only a strong breakout of the range can give us a new direction. pic.twitter.com/bsCllL3YNa
— Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) January 7, 2019
Even more concerning for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to Chris Burniske, a partner at crypto venture capital firm Placeholder VC, is that digital coins still hold no relevancy to most mainstream retail investors, making a sustained climb difficult to foresee right now.
But the mainstream? For most, #crypto is still not relevant to their life.
If they didn’t invest in 2017, they’ve forgotten. If they did, chances are they have a bad taste in their mouth and want to forget.
— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) January 5, 2019
The bottom line is that not only does Bitcoin have to show a sustained price increase to convince analysts that that the bulls are pulling the coin out of its bear market, but Bitcoin also suffered such a massive plunge in 2017 that it has a significant amount of ground to make up in order to recover those losses.
“Bitcoin, still ranked first, presently holds a $71.08 billion market cap value,” Yaz Sheikh, a cryptocurrency technical analyst at Invest in Blockchain writes. “However, the 68-month old cryptocurrency has a long road to recover after losing 38% over the previous 90 trading days. The market now trades at a value that is 79% lower than the all-time high trading price.”
It appears $4,000 doesn’t go as far as it used to anymore.
Photo: Getty iStock