Bitcoin price: Deep decrease
Early this morning (October 18), Bitcoin - the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value witnessed a decrease of 4.29%, down to 106,002.96 USD.
This new price contributes to bringing market capitalization to 2,113 billion USD, down 79 billion USD. However, trading volume in the first 24 hours suddenly increased, currently at 115.78 billion USD.
Assessment and forecast
Bitcoin has had a volatile first half of October. The world's largest digital currency increased sharply at the beginning of the month as investors sought a hedge against the uncertainty caused by the US government's closure. However, last weekend, Bitcoin fell from $121,000 to its lowest level of $104,000 after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese goods.
The decline in Bitcoin as gold hit a new record high of over $4,300, up 18% over the past month, is easily seen. Compared to gold, Bitcoin has not been able to fully recover after the decline at the end of the week and has fallen more than 9% against the USD during this time.
Sean Farrell - Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Fundstrat - said: "Currently, capital flows are prioritizing gold thanks to strong upward momentum and higher stability. Central banks are also big buyers of gold, providing near absolute protection for the asset.
Farrell also believes that investors will eventually return to Bitcoin because gold is often leading the cryptocurrency market.
Ed Yardeni - a veteran strategist at Wall Street, explained that the sharp decline in Bitcoin last week was mainly due to the exacerbation of the cryptocurrency derivatives market. When prices fall rapidly, liquidity is exhausted, causing more than 19 billion USD of the position to be automatically liquidated to prevent greater losses.
A "wallet" - a large investor - earned 192 million USD from selling counterfeit Bitcoin before the collapse, contributing to pushing prices down further.
However, cryptocurrency investors still expect October to be positive as Bitcoin has increased by 10/12 years. Analysts predict that Bitcoin prices will increase sharply by the end of this year, with JPMorgan expecting prices to reach 165,000 USD and Citi predicting to reach 133,000 USD this year, up to 181,000 USD by the end of 2026.
