Bitcoin Surge Pushes Weekly Gain to 30%, and It's Only Wednesday

(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin’s furious run is starting to look more and more like it did at the height of crypto-mania two years ago.The virtual currency surged as much as 14% on Wednesday, topping $12,900 for the first time since January 2018, and bringing its gain since late Friday to about 30%. The digital asset has climbed more than 200% since December, prompting many investors to ignore the 74% drop last year that followed the parabolic 1,400% surge in 2017.“While I understand the excitement for the community that a company like Facebook, backed by other big names, has launched its own coin, this just feels a lot like last time and we all know what happened then,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. in London wrote in a note. “Perhaps this time the drop off won’t be so bad as we are seeing more mainstream adoption but it may be naive to think that it can’t come crashing down again.”Its relative strength index, a gauge of momentum, is now within a hair’s breadth of the level when the cryptocurrency peaked around $19,500 in 2017.Accelerating gains have raised the stakes for traders as they try to gauge whether this month’s rally has more staying power than the bubble that ended with a $700 billion crypto wipeout in 2018. While bulls have cheered signs of growing interest in virtual currencies from major companies like Facebook Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., skeptics say it’s unclear how those initiatives will ultimately benefit Bitcoin and its peers.A break above the $12,720 level “will allow for a complete retracement of the 2018 bear market,” according to John Kolovos, chief technical strategist at New York-based Macro Risk Advisors, though he noted in comments Tuesday that the rally was “turning more and more impulsive.”The last time Bitcoin rose above $12,000 was in December 2017. It rallied further, eventually reaching as high as $19,511 later in the month, but the surge was followed by a precipitous fall that saw it drop below $6,000 by February. All in all, in December 2017 and January 2018, Bitcoin spent about six weeks above $12,000.(Updates prices. An earlier version corrected attribution in the sixth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Michael Patterson and Cormac Mullen.To contact the reporter on this story: Joanna Ossinger in Singapore at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at [email protected], Adam Haigh, Dave LiedtkaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P. Read More...

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin’s furious run is starting to look more and more like it did at the height of crypto-mania two years ago.The virtual currency surged as much as 14% on Wednesday, topping $12,900 for the first time since January 2018, and bringing its gain since late Friday to about 30%. The digital asset has climbed more than 200% since December, prompting many investors to ignore the 74% drop last year that followed the parabolic 1,400% surge in 2017.“While I understand the excitement for the community that a company like Facebook, backed by other big names, has launched its own coin, this just feels a lot like last time and we all know what happened then,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. in London wrote in a note. “Perhaps this time the drop off won’t be so bad as we are seeing more mainstream adoption but it may be naive to think that it can’t come crashing down again.”Its relative strength index, a gauge of momentum, is now within a hair’s breadth of the level when the cryptocurrency peaked around $19,500 in 2017.Accelerating gains have raised the stakes for traders as they try to gauge whether this month’s rally has more staying power than the bubble that ended with a $700 billion crypto wipeout in 2018. While bulls have cheered signs of growing interest in virtual currencies from major companies like Facebook Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., skeptics say it’s unclear how those initiatives will ultimately benefit Bitcoin and its peers.A break above the $12,720 level “will allow for a complete retracement of the 2018 bear market,” according to John Kolovos, chief technical strategist at New York-based Macro Risk Advisors, though he noted in comments Tuesday that the rally was “turning more and more impulsive.”The last time Bitcoin rose above $12,000 was in December 2017. It rallied further, eventually reaching as high as $19,511 later in the month, but the surge was followed by a precipitous fall that saw it drop below $6,000 by February. All in all, in December 2017 and January 2018, Bitcoin spent about six weeks above $12,000.(Updates prices. An earlier version corrected attribution in the sixth paragraph.)\–With assistance from Michael Patterson and Cormac Mullen.To contact the reporter on this story: Joanna Ossinger in Singapore at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at [email protected], Adam Haigh, Dave LiedtkaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin’s furious run is starting to look more and more like it did at the height of crypto-mania two years ago.

The virtual currency surged as much as 14% on Wednesday, topping $12,900 for the first time since January 2018, and bringing its gain since late Friday to about 30%. The digital asset has climbed more than 200% since December, prompting many investors to ignore the 74% drop last year that followed the parabolic 1,400% surge in 2017.

“While I understand the excitement for the community that a company like Facebook, backed by other big names, has launched its own coin, this just feels a lot like last time and we all know what happened then,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. in London wrote in a note. “Perhaps this time the drop off won’t be so bad as we are seeing more mainstream adoption but it may be naive to think that it can’t come crashing down again.”

Its relative strength index, a gauge of momentum, is now within a hair’s breadth of the level when the cryptocurrency peaked around $19,500 in 2017.

Accelerating gains have raised the stakes for traders as they try to gauge whether this month’s rally has more staying power than the bubble that ended with a $700 billion crypto wipeout in 2018. While bulls have cheered signs of growing interest in virtual currencies from major companies like Facebook Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., skeptics say it’s unclear how those initiatives will ultimately benefit Bitcoin and its peers.

A break above the $12,720 level “will allow for a complete retracement of the 2018 bear market,” according to John Kolovos, chief technical strategist at New York-based Macro Risk Advisors, though he noted in comments Tuesday that the rally was “turning more and more impulsive.”

The last time Bitcoin rose above $12,000 was in December 2017. It rallied further, eventually reaching as high as $19,511 later in the month, but the surge was followed by a precipitous fall that saw it drop below $6,000 by February. All in all, in December 2017 and January 2018, Bitcoin spent about six weeks above $12,000.

(Updates prices. An earlier version corrected attribution in the sixth paragraph.)

–With assistance from Michael Patterson and Cormac Mullen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joanna Ossinger in Singapore at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at [email protected], Adam Haigh, Dave Liedtka

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