"When I woke up, I witnessed history again." Recently, the term "witnessing history" has become commonplace in the currency circle.
As of 5:00 on January 11, 2021, the current price of Bitcoin is about 38,000 US dollars, and the high point has reached 41,900 US dollars. Analysts believe that institutions have driven the rise of Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market, and more and more institutional investors have shown strong interest in Bitcoin.
According to the January 2021 cryptocurrency outlook report released by the Bloomberg team on January 9, Bitcoin is maturing as an asset. The report states that $50,000 could be the next stop for Bitcoin. And as Bitcoin attempts to break through the $50,000 resistance level, Bitcoin’s all-time high of $20,000 is serving as its base point.
However, under the skyrocketing, Bitcoin is facing strong doubts and tortures all the time. On January 9, the Economic Daily published an article "How Long Can Bitcoin Run?" Analysts in the article warned that it is foreseeable that in 2021, the bitcoin market will still be surrounded by labels such as automated market makers, huge fluctuations, ultra-high yields, anti-fiat currencies, and the central bank system. It should be the shared responsibility of global financial regulators and market participants to prevent excessive bitcoin speculation and further increase systemic risks.
first level title
Is $50,000 within reach?
Since Bitcoin broke through 30,000 US dollars on January 2, it has been like a runaway dark horse, and it has made great strides all the way. According to Asset Dash data, as of 5:00 on January 11, 2021, the current price of Bitcoin is approximately US$38,000, with a market value of US$707.7 billion, ranking ninth, behind Tencent and ahead of Alibaba. A few days ago, Bitcoin once surpassed Tesla and ranked sixth.
At the same time, Bitcoin transaction activity has increased again. On January 8, Skew data showed that the daily trading volume of Bitcoin futures exceeded $100 billion for the first time.
Glassnode data also shows that the number of addresses currently holding more than 1,000 bitcoins has reached 2,334, a record high. This shows that the "giant whales" are still bullish on Bitcoin and continue to buy to push the price up.
Among them, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, as the largest encrypted digital asset trust product under Grayscale, has become one of the largest entities to buy Bitcoin driven by the demand of institutional investors. The data shows that its total custody has increased from US$2 billion at the beginning of 2020 to US$28.4 billion on January 8, 2021.
At the same time, OKLink data shows that on January 6, the number of active addresses on the Bitcoin network was 1.291 million, and the number of active addresses on the network in a single day hit the historical peak in January 2018. Since April 2020, the number of daily active addresses on the Bitcoin network has maintained an upward trend, and has shown a substantial increase in the past 60 days.
In addition, on January 7, according to data monitoring on the Tokenview chain, the net outflow of Bitcoin from the centralized exchange has continued to increase in the past week. Among them, the net outflows of Bitfinex and Huobi are the most prominent, and Binance still has a net inflow at the end of each month, and then shows a net outflow in the middle of the month. The week-on-week net outflow growth ranks are Bitfinex 150%, Binance 51.41%, and Huobi 44.32%. According to the statistics in the past 4 months, at least one million bitcoins have been outflowed from exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and Bitfinex.
"Looking at this situation, after the Bitcoin market undergoes a correction, there is a high probability that the starting line will be re-established." Veteran player Selina said.
Not only that, the January 2021 cryptocurrency outlook report released by the Bloomberg team pointed out that the current institutional bidding seems to be intensifying, and $50,000 may be the next stop for Bitcoin.
first level title
Mining competition intensifies
"Miners are the biggest winners in the bull market." F2Pool CMO Qingqing said in a recent event that the trend of large numbers of institutions entering the market is becoming more and more obvious, and the demand for Bitcoin is increasing, and the easiest way to obtain Bitcoin is mining.
Xiao Hai, a senior miner, said that Bitcoin mining revenue has more than tripled in the past three months, measured by revenue per "TH/s". “At the beginning of October, the revenue per 'TH/s' was about $0.07 to $0.08, and it spiked to $0.27 to $0.28 in the latest week,” he further said. It can be seen that miners are one of the biggest beneficiaries of the bull market.
Accompanied by this, the mining machine market has recovered again. According to a mining machine sales manager in Huaqiangbei, since November 2020, as the price of Bitcoin has continued to rise, not only new mining machines are in short supply, but second-hand mining machines have also become popular.
On January 9, "Bitcoin mining machines doubled in price and still in short supply" appeared on the hot search. According to a report from Pear Video, on January 8, in the Huaqiangbei SEG market in Shenzhen, the shops selling mining machines were still there, but there were also some "people went to shop empty". The mining machine salesperson said that the price of mining machines has doubled within two months, but the supply is still in short supply, depending on whether you have the supply.
While mining machines are in short supply, the difficulty of mining continues to rise. According to OKLink data, at 23:25 on January 9, the Bitcoin network ushered in a difficulty adjustment at a height of 665280. This time the difficulty was adjusted to 20.61T, an increase of 10.79%. The next mining difficulty adjustment time is about January 22, and it is expected that the difficulty will increase again by 10.43% to 22.76T, which will set a new record high by then.
But unfortunately, Nuclear Finance APP learned from several mining farms in Sichuan that due to the shortage of electricity due to the dry season, Sichuan has imposed mandatory requirements on cryptocurrency mining, which has made most of the mining farms’ electricity consumption very tight, and even more A mine is in a state of power outage.
In addition, in order to alleviate the shortage of power supply in Sichuan Province, the State Grid requires the hydropower station to stop supplying power to the big data center from December 8. This is undoubtedly very unfavorable for local mines.
However, Bitcoin mining has blossomed in North America. At the end of 2020, Marathon Patent Group, a North American listed mining company, reached a mining machine sales contract with Bitmain, and will purchase 70,000 Antminer S19 ASIC mining machines for US$170 million. According to people familiar with the matter, the order is expected to be fully delivered by the end of 2021.
On January 1, according to a Bloomberg report, the Nordic region, especially Norway and Sweden, has experienced mild weather over the past 20 years, which has helped increase the generation of hydroelectric power plants, and for Bitcoin miners, the cost of electricity will change. This is increasingly important, so record low electricity prices in places like Sweden could make it a lucrative location for bitcoin mining.
On January 6, Jinse Finance reported that Nasdaq-listed company Marathon Patent and Canadian miner DMG announced that they will cooperate to establish the first cooperative mining pool in North America. The partnership aims to bring together resources to further diversify the Bitcoin hash and increase transparency among miners.
first level title
Market debate mixed
Public opinion has mixed opinions on Bitcoin's rapid progress and the FOMO sentiment generated by investors. Greed and fear have always been at the heart of investors.
Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and Bitcoin opponent, declared on Twitter that although the price of Bitcoin broke through the all-time high of $40,000, it cannot be called a "disruptive technology" because it did not disrupt anything . Neither central banks nor governments have lost any power, and this remains the case no matter how high the price of Bitcoin rises. But Schiff believes that if the price of gold soars to $10,000, the fiat currency system could easily collapse.
Recently, the "Economic Daily" also commented that at present, bitcoin transactions are still floating in the gray area. With the development and launch of legal digital currencies in various countries in the future, the control or suppression of virtual currencies will increase, and the investment space of bitcoin will be greatly reduced. greatly compressed. Experts said that the lack of a credible country or organization to endorse it, nor is it linked to any real assets, when a sovereign state declares Bitcoin illegal, Bitcoin may be worthless.
In addition, the "Economic Daily" quoted analysts who warned that investors should be alert to the speculative risks of the Bitcoin market: on the one hand, the Bitcoin market is still small and easy to manipulate; on the other hand, the world has not yet established a sound Bitcoin market regulation mechanism.
It is commendable that Cointelegraph issued an article stating that Newsweek, one of the largest weekly news magazines in the United States, made a positive evaluation of Bitcoin in a recent article, exploring whether Bitcoin can become the new gold standard. The article analyzed digital gold claims using JPMorgan's latest model, which it says shows a potential price of $146,000 for Bitcoin. While the article doesn’t provide any new information for crypto enthusiasts, it’s evidence that the prevailing narrative around cryptocurrencies has changed.
Meanwhile, CryptoCompare CEO Charles Hayter told CNBC that looking ahead, there are "two clear catalysts" for the crypto market, namely the approval of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and the successful completion of an IPO by Coinbase.
Industry analysts believe that if it is successfully approved, it will be the first Bitcoin ETF approved by the US SEC. However, Bitcoin ETF-like products have not been approved by the US SEC in the past few years, and VanEck has applied for similar products twice, but they were later withdrawn. Recently, Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of Grayscale, said that we believe that the Bitcoin ETF is a matter of time, not whether it will be launched.
On December 17, EST, Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, announced that it had submitted an IPO listing application to the SEC. In this regard, Ouriel Ohayon, CEO of Bitcoin wallet ZenGo, said that the importance of Coinbase IPO cannot be overstated. He believes that the Coinbase listing could set the stage for the future of the industry as a whole, confirming that the industry is maturing and putting strong players in the spotlight.
