Bitcoin has officially hit the $9,000 mark today, as the massive user adoption from hedge funds, soon-to-be-released futures markets and further increases in the number of users.
Ironically, many on the /r/BitcoinMarkets subreddit expected the price to drop over the Thanksgiving weekend, in part due to US banks being closed. However, over the past week the price had shown strength, consolidating in the low $8,000s. Twice the price briefly dipped into the $7,800 range, but those dips were rapidly bought.
Apparently people didn’t merely take advantage of Black Friday to buy TVs and electronics, but also stocked up on Bitcoin. The price began trending up yesterday as the market began adding volume, and today broke the next major psychological hurdle of $9,000.
More to come?
Thought many mainstream finance pundits regard Bitcoin as a bubble, the market has not shown any signs of a so-called “blow off top,” meaning a sudden and major reversal is unlikely at the moment. Bubble cycles often end with a massive spike in prices that’s almost immediately followed by an even larger sell-off.
The next major hurdle, and arguably the largest psychological barrier of all, is $10,000. However, that may not be as hard to breach as one might think, considering that the combined price of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash already well exceeds $10,000. That is to say, anybody who owned Bitcoin prior to August 1 and didn’t sell their Bitcoin Cash is already enjoying prices in excess of the next major target.
Analysts such as the normally bearish Tom Lee, founder of Fundstrat, are turning bullish. Lee recently indicated that his near term price projection is $14,000. He explains away the brief dip that followed the cancellation of SegWit2x as a shaking out of weak hands. At press time, Bitcoin’s price on the GDAX exchange was $9,085.