Bitcoin gains 6% in less than 12 hours: Could this be the start of another bull run?
Despite yesterday's surge, Bitcoin is still exhibiting monthly losses of nearly 8%.
- El Salvador president Nayib Bukele revealed that his government recently "bought the dip" by adding 100 BTC to its crypto holdings.
- 2 regulated Bitcoin funds recently made their debut in Singapore.
- Experts believe that Bitcoin could very well scale up to the AUD$97,000 (USD$70,000) range over the coming few weeks.
After having hovered close to the AUD$75k mark for nearly 3 days straight, Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by total market capitalisation, has proceeded to rise to a relative high of AUD$80,603 over the past 12 hours. At press time, Bitcoin is trading for AUD$80,197.
Amidst these falling prices, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele revealed that his government had gone forward and bought an additional 100 BTC for a discounted sum of around $5 million. Bukele announced the decision shortly after it came to light that a new variant of the COVID-19 virus had been detected in South Africa.
In all, the El Salvadoran government now has in its coffers a total of 1,220 Bitcoin worth approximately $70 million in value. Furthermore, over the last few months, Bukele has set into motion a number of initiatives centred on mining and adoption to help spur the use of crypto within his nation's borders. The government is also in the process of devising infrastructure to support a state-issued Bitcoin wallet called Chivo.
Since reaching its all-time-high value of $69k on 10 November, Bitcoin has fallen by over 20% only to make a sharp recovery yesterday.
Regulated Bitcoin funds debut in Singapore
Singapore-based Fintonia Group, which is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), has announced the launch of 2 institutional-grade Bitcoin funds: the Fintonia Bitcoin Physical Fund and the Fintonia Secured Yield Fund. These funds are meant to provide investors with direct exposure to Bitcoin in a simple and streamlined manner.
The offerings, much like mutual funds, are open-ended but are only available to accredited investors at the moment, the company's founder Adrian Chng told a media outlet recently. While the Fintonia Bitcoin Physical Fund is meant to allow investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin, letting them buy, store and sell large amounts of the cryptocurrency, the Fintonia Secured Yield Fund is meant to provide its users with access to private loans accrued via the use of the flagship crypto.
What lies ahead?
Talking about BTC's near-term price action, Alex Mashinsky, founder of crypto lending platform Celsius, tweeted out that even though a retest of the AUD$74,000 (US$53,000) resistance is a possibility, a bounce back to the AUD$97,000 (US$70,000) range could also very well be on the cards for Bitcoin over the course of the next few weeks.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner's guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing
