Bitcoin Jumps Above $14.5K, Taking 2020 Gains to Over 100%
Bitcoin's price jumped to a 33-month high of $14,558 soon before press time, taking the year-to-date gains to 101%.
Updated Aug 19, 2021 at 5:29 a.m. UTC
Bitcoin’s price rally is powering on despite the U.S. elections being as yet undecided.
- The top cryptocurrency by market value jumped to a 33-month high of $14,558 soon before press time, taking the year-to-date gains to 101%, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.
- The cryptocurrency has notched up a 38% rally in the last four weeks alone.
- Prices did suffer a minor pullback from $14,000 to $13,520 during Wednesday's Asian trading hours after President Trump's victory in Florida and other key states appeared to reduce the odds of a bigger fiscal spending package under Democrat Joe Biden's leadership.
- The decline, however, was quickly reversed and the cryptocurrency resumed its uptrend from October lows near $10,400, possibly on expectations for continued Federal Reserve stimulus.
- "We may not know what a post-election [fiscal] stimulus may look like, but investors continue to believe that the Fed will keep printing money at a pace that favors bitcoins finite supply," John Kramer, a trader at crypto liquidity provider GSR, told CoinDesk.
- The central bank is unlikely to cut down or halt the liquidity-boosting bond purchases intended to lift inflation, and has pledged to keep interest rates low for sometime after inflation rises above the 2% target.
- The central bank is expected to reiterate the dovish bias later today and may express a willingness to do more if the election results in a prolonged period of uncertainty for the economy and markets.
- " If there is social disorder because of a Trump win, the Fed prints. If the election result is a blue wave and taxes rise, the dollar falls because the Fed prints more, and more and more," Bill Noble, chief technical analyst at Token Metrics, a cryptocurrency research company, said.
- According to reports, Biden has inched closer to the White House but the jury is still out, with President Trump filing lawsuits in key states seeking to pause postal vote counts.
- Disclosure: The author holds small positions in bitcoin and litecoin.
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