First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Seen Topping $50K This Weekend

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Bitcoin (BTC) rose for a fifth day, surpassing the $47,000 mark early Friday as the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a gauge of the biggest cryptocurrencies, added 4%. The largest crypto by market cap reached a one-month high as East Asia ushered in its biggest festival of the year, the Chinese new year of the dragon, celebrating the start of what’s believed to be one of the luckiest periods according to the Chinese Zodiac. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for dragon is pronounced similarly to “long,” boosting memetic value among crypto traders. Some analysts predict the cryptocurrency will rise to $50,000 over the weekend. Others have said it might even reach $53,000-$55,000 before the cryptocurrency’s halving in April.

Cryptocurrency-related publicly traded companies showed healthy gains in pre-market trading on Friday as bitcoin extended its rally. Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) led the way, climbing almost 20% as of 10:15 UTC. The company reported fiscal first-quarter profit of $25.9 million on Thursday compared with a $29 million loss the year before. Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) also rallied, adding 7% and 8% respectively. Mining stocks are a recommended entry point for bitcoin exposure ahead of the forthcoming halving, in which the reward miners earn for new coins is cut by 50%, broker Bernstein said. The firm picked CLSK and RIOT as its preferred stocks in a research report on Thursday.

Banking giant JPMorgan's survey found that 78% of institutional traders aren't planning to trade cryptocurrencies in the next five years, and just a small group sees blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT) as the most influential technology in shaping the future of trading over the next three years. The bank interviewed over 4,000 institutional traders for its 2024 e-Trading annual survey, which covers upcoming trends and hot topics in the trading sector. The participants seemed less enthusiastic about blockchain technology in 2024 than in the previous two years.