On the back of the news that payments giant PayPal would be enabling crypto payments, Bitcoin surged to a fresh yearly high of $13,200 in late trading on Wednesday, Oct. 21. This marks the highest price that the digital asset has hit since June 2019 when it topped $13,800 briefly.
Bitcoin makes 14% in a week
Bitcoin found resistance at this level and retreated to $12,700 before returning to top $13k again the following day. At the time of writing, BTC has pulled back slightly and is currently trading a touch over $12,900 according to Tradingview.com. The move marks a gain of 14% since last Friday and 23% since the same time last month. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has made an impressive 80% but it has not been the best performing crypto asset. Analyst ‘CryptoHamster’ disagreed with the widely accepted notion that the PayPal news had anything to do with Bitcoin’s price pump, correlating it with the minting of more of the stablecoin Tether instead. Tether often produces more of the stablecoin which subsequently flows into Bitcoin. Its latest mint was just a day ago when $300 million USDT replenished the Tron Network. Fellow analyst Josh Rager compared the move to a similar surge last October, adding;
Where next for BTC?
Analysts are eyeing a short term pullback for Bitcoin following its rampant performance this week. This could provide key buying zones for the bulls to continue their momentum. On the downside, there is support at $12,700 with more at $12,250 while on the upside newly formed resistance lies at $13,200. Beyond that, Bitcoin needs to beat the 2019 high of $13,800 for the bulls to push it to its highest prices since the crypto market bubble in late 2017 and early 2018. Popular trader and analyst ‘Cantering Clark’ thinks that prices blasting through the previous all-time high of $20k are quite possible. Either way, the bulls are very much in control of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets at the moment.
