Bitcoin price has been moving in a less directional manner than in our last market update[i] and has been range trading between $10k and $13k. The large range for this consolidation also highlights the further increase in Bitcoin’s volatility (based on daily returns for the last 30 days) to 6.16%, its highest value since March 2018.[ii]
The lower boundary of the $10.3k to $11k support level was briefly broken at the beginning of July, but price then bounced off the 200-period 4h candle exponential moving average. This dynamic support level has been relevant in recent corrections, as for example at the beginning of June (blue arrows in chart above). Bitcoin then found resistance again at $13k, from where price retraced to the levels it is currently trading at ($10.3k).
Bitcoin dominance continues to increase and currently sits at 68.6% (5% higher than on July 1) – “altcoins” such as Ethereum (the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization) suffered even more losses than Bitcoin itself in the most recent drop from $13k. ETHBTC, commonly referred to as “the ratio” and an indicator for the overall state of the altcoin market, is trading at 0.022 – below the 0.025 to 0.04 range that it has been trading in for the last 300 days.
Bitcoin vs. Gold
In a recent testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell further stressed that the central bank is ready to support the current economic expansion with rate cuts.[iii] Powell also mentioned Bitcoin as a “speculative store of value” and compared it to gold as an alternative.[iv] Gold, which has been widely accepted as a store of value since ancient times, has recently managed to break and close above $1.4k, a level which has acted as resistance for almost six years.
The timing of gold’s push higher coincides with the bullish impulsion on Bitcoin. Indeed, the correlation between Bitcoin and gold has been increasing in the recent past, albeit still being relatively low at around +0.15.[v]
While currencies of low-inflation countries such as the U.S. or most of Europe sufficiently retain their purchasing power, the populations of e.g. Argentina or Venezuela do not have this luxury, with inflation rates sitting at 57% and 283’000% respectively.[vi] Under such circumstances, people are in dire need of a reliable store of value. While gold shines with its long history of being accepted as valuable, Bitcoin has features such as its limited supply, high divisibility and easy transferability that are desirable for a broadly accessible and future-proof store of value. As such, the ideal store of value of the future may well be a combination of gold and its “digital version” – Bitcoin.
Written by Dr. Raffael Huber, Research and Sandro Huwyler, Trade Desk of Bitcoin Suisse AG
i https://www.tradersinsight.news/traders-insight/securities/crypto/bitcoin-suisse-bitcoin-bursts-through-10000/ [02/07/2019]
ii https://bitvol.info/index.html [15/07/2019]
iii https://www.wsj.com/video/powell-signals-rate-cut-at-senate-hearing/42374AF4-6D92-4A66-815B-A9D83EBFD43E.html [11/07/2019]
iv https://youtu.be/iSRfoBp%5FFq0?t=6328 [11/07/2019]
v https://coinmetrics.io/correlation-charts/#assets=btc-gld [15/07/2019]
vi https://tradingeconomics.com/argentina/inflation-cpi?continent=america ; https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi [15/07/2019]
