Bitcoin Climbs Past $40k, Analyst Expects Another Jump in BTC Value, ETH Taps New Highs

The price of bitcoin is nearing the crypto asset’s all-time price high on Saturday, as the digital currency has gained over 6% during the last 24 hours. The last time BTC was this high in value was during the first week of January when bitcoin touched a high of $42k that week.

Crypto Prices Begin to Rise, Bitcoin Crosses the Psychological $40k Threshold

Bitcoin (BTC) is up 6% today and hovering over the $40k price handle during Saturday morning’s trading sessions. For the last seven days, BTC has gained 17.6%, but during the last month, BTC is only up 2.3% today. Three month stats show bitcoin has also gained 160% and 311% against the U.S. dollar for the last 12 months.

Today, BTC has a dominance index of around 62% even during the price high. That’s because coins like ethereum (ETH) and bitcoin cash (BCH) and others have seen some significant gains. At press time, with a 1.16 trillion dollar overall market valuation, BTC’s entire market cap is hovering around $750 billion this Saturday.

Meanwhile, as ethereum (ETH) touched new price highs on Friday jumping over $1,750 per unit, the price has dipped since then. At the moment, ETH is exchanging hands for $1,680 per coin with a market valuation of around $193 billion.

The biggest gainers in the top ten crypto-list on Saturday include binance coin (BNB) and bitcoin cash (BCH). BNB has gained a whopping 24% today and is trading for $73 per unit. Bitcoin cash (BCH) is up 8.6% on Saturday morning and swapping for $474 per BCH.

Today’s biggest gainers include ultrain (UGAS), stakenet (XSN), airswap (AST), linkeye (LET), and district0x (DNT). Saturday’s biggest losers include akropolis (AKRO), reddcoin (RDD), nexo (NEXO), mossland (MOC), and swissborg (CHSB).

A Rising Tide of Institutional Investors and Global Adoption

On Wednesday, the senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone said that he believes BTC may touch the $50k handle soon. “About $30,000 is the threshold supported by a rising tide of institutional investors and global adoption as a store-of-value,” McGlone stressed. “Our graphic depicts the milestone of the 20-week moving average crossing above $20,000, which we view as an extreme downside level in the event of a risk-off swoon akin to 1Q20.”

McGlone further added:

Bitcoin 260-day volatility is in early bottoming days from an all-time low vs. the same gold measure, akin to the start of 2017. Our [findings] depict accelerating flows into Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) as they decline in total known ETF holdings of gold. At almost 700,000 Bitcoins, GBTC is reaching record highs, while gold ETFs have dropped to about 107 million ounces from the October peak, just above 111 million.

Upcoming CME Futures Launch Boosts Ethereum Price

Additionally, crypto proponents and industry execs also believe ethereum (ETH) is headed for higher numbers. Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Bitfinex recently discussed the rising ETH value in an investor’s note sent to news.Bitcoin.com. “Ethereum is seemingly ‘going to the moon as it reaches another all-time high above $US1,700,” Ardoino wrote.

“There are lots of moving parts to the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Skeptics may focus on the challenges that it faces. But hackers and coders love to solve problems. Ethereum was designed to be a currency to fuel an ecosystem of applications and we are still at the very beginning of this journey. Meanwhile, the coming CME Futures launch represents another milestone towards crypto becoming an established asset class,” the Bitfinex CTO concluded.