Bitcoin is up more than 22% to almost $9,000 in the first 15 days of 2020, the coin’s best start of the year surge since 2012. With institutional interest gaining traction, and adoption and name recognition on the rise, this decade looks promising for the leading cryptocurrency.
Reasons for Bitcoin’s Bull Run
Several factors are fueling Bitcoin’s bullish run. Global trading company CME Group launched options tied to Bitcoin futures this week, establishing a new vehicle for institutional investors to buy in to the digital currency.
Further, a survey of financial advisors showed that a higher proportion expect to allocate to digital currencies in 2020 than in the past. And 64% of advisors expect the price of Bitcoin to appreciate over the next five years, up from 55% of advisors in last year’s survey
“I think you’re going to see greater mainstream adoption,” Michael Conn, managing partner at Quail Creek Ventures, told The Wall Street Journal. “You can see this happening already with Fidelity and other institutional players moving into the space.”
Others, like Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO and CIO at DoubleLine Capital, recommended investors pile into Bitcoin in 2019 before its 95% surge through the year. He recently doubled-down and stated that he thinks the coin could nearly double its value by year-end:
“I think bitcoin’s going to go higher in the near term. I think it could go as high as $15,000 in 2020,” Gundlach said on his podcast last week.
Impact of Halving and Influx of Institutional Investors
Bitcoin investors are also hoping on the coin’s “halving” will lead to higher prices. The event is set to occur on May 12 and cut the amount of BTC awarded for blockchain mining in half. As the drop in coin reward goes from 12.5 coins to 6.25, the reduced supply entering the market from miners is likely to cause the price of the asset to rise.
Yesterday NewsBTC reported that Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS) — the cryptocurrency-centric arm of investment firm Fidelity — has entered a partnership with a London-based crypto asset firm Nickel Digital Asset management.
In a bullish move to expose digital assets to institutional investors in Europe, the partnership is designed to help address the lack of back-office services such as custody of cryptocurrencies among major financial providers.
Following Bitcoin’s run, smaller digital currencies like ETH and XRP are also up, gaining 25% and 20%, respectively, this month.
Bitcoin was trading at $8,750 per coin at the time of publication.
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