Bitcoin continued to inch higher on Tuesday marking an improvement from the close of the previous day. This was propelled by news that giant asset management firm Black-rock, had decided to put in place a working group to explore crypto-currencies and the underpinning block-chain technology. This news led to a 5 % rise in Bitcoin prices as reported by market price tracker, coin desk. Bitcoin prices haven’t risen above the 8,000 market price in months, which makes the latest surge in prices interesting.
Rival crypto tokens Lite-coin, Ethereum and Ripple were not left behind in what looks like a market revival since they also rallied up by 7.6%. The latest gains see the total global value of crypto first approaching the 300 billion mark according to data picked up by coinmarketcap.com where they looked at data on almost 1700 crypto tokens. Despite the gains made, the world’s most valuable crypto-currency still remains short of its December 2017 record highs of 20,000. Short is actually an understatement since Bitcoin is currently valued 60% below its previous highs.
CoinFI’s chief executive officer, Timothy Tam while contacted via phone expressed a “you can’t fall off the floor” line of thinking, stating that there is only one direction for crypto to go right now since the markets have been depressed for months. He further stated that the timing of the market resurgence was hard to pinpoint but was confident that the market was at the beginning of a secular bull run. Interested parties have gained a renewed faith in Bitcoin after efforts by central banks and big regulators failed to stunt it. News of Black-rock looking into crypto saw the crypto token hit support in the market instead of an expected market collapse. With reports of black-rock, the biggest asset manager globally looking crypto came speculation of a possible launch of an exchange-traded fund holding Bitcoin.
Regained optimism in crypto was compounded by reports that crypto mining rig maker, Bitmain had just completed a 300- 400 million funding round. Market sentiment in crypto seems to be improving with BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, becoming a believer. He recently stated that Black-rock was a big student of crypto-currencies solidifying the reports that the asset managing firm was looking into crypto. He, however, added that he did not see a huge demand for crypto-currencies.
Despite his later statement, the fact that he admitted to his firm looking into crypto was a far cry from his past statements on crypto. Larry once referred to crypto as an “index for money laundering”, but his latest statements are indicative of a change of heart. The crypto market has seen several shocks this year and it remains to be seen whether the move by Black-rock could trigger a serious rally.
