BITCOIN’s price has surged to a new historical high, sparking the panic of the European Central Bank’s President Christine Lagarde, whose recent comments have exposed a “widespread misunderstanding” among policy makers, a political commentator has claimed.

The President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, has announced she wants to regulate cryptocurrencies. Ms Lagarde expressed her concerns and scepticism, saying: “It is not a currency. Cryptocurrencies are not money. “It is a highly speculative asset.”

The ECB President then underlined the lack of guarantees of real stability, as in the case of the euro or the dollar.

Explaining the risks consumers are exposed to, Ms Lagarde continued: “It is imperative that, if an activity is carried out by a private actor, this activity, if it is similar to money, is subject to exactly the same rules, exactly the same rations, exactly the same control mechanisms.

“So even if they are not money, but are ‘similar’ to them, the rules for cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies must be the same.”

In a recent report, the head of Oxford-based think-tank Euro Intelligence Wolfgang Munchau hit out at Ms Lagarde, arguing her comment “goes to the heart of the misunderstanding of the economics and central bank professions about the nature of Bitcoin“.

He wrote: “It will not be up to them to decide whether or not it is money.

“That question will be settled by those who use it.

“Fiat money is a social contract that exists because people trust it.

“The betting on Bitcoin, including Elon Musk’s €1.5billion (£1.1bn) investment, constitute a bet that this might not always be so.”

Mr Munchau noted the world may only be a couple of policy mistakes away from an environment in which the use of digital money, Bitcoin and others, could become more widespread.

He explained: “Bitcoin is not only a bet against inflation like gold or silver. It is a bet against a system in which money is used as a policy tool. It is no surprise that the launch of Bitcoin, in 2009, coincided with the advent of quantitative easing.

“The widespread misunderstanding of policy makers is that the intention of Bitcoin was never to create a rival to the euro or the dollar but to create a device that protects from economists and central bankers or governments that want to track electronic payments.

“The group of techies who started the project with an article in 2009 saw Bitcoin as a device to protect individuals from state control of all kinds – by creating a stateless currency that could be used in transactions and a store of value.

Read more: Express

• Mike Novogratz says many companies in America will eventually add Bitcoin to their balance sheet.
• He also thinks that the price of the cryptocurrency will double in value as more firms will hold BTC.

The founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, is among the many crypto industry players that believe Tesla’s move to Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, would be an eye-opener for other companies to buy BTC. The electric car company allocated $1.5 billion of its cash reserve to the cryptocurrency. Novogratz is optimistic that many other companies in the United States will follow suit.

Mike Novogratz foresees Bitcoin doubling in price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $46,495 on Coinmarketcap, with a market valuation of over $865 billion. The cryptocurrency is more likely to double in value as the herds gradually arrive, the Galaxy Digital CEO told Bloomberg Television. “You’re seeing the herd here, and it’s coming,” Mike Novogratz said, adding that every company in the United States will eventually hold Bitcoin. “It doesn’t have to be a lot. It’s the messaging that matters.”

Mike Novogratz applauded Elon Musk’s decision to listen to the people, saying he is a genius. “Now you got the biggest, the wealthiest man in the world and one of the biggest stories doing it. […] You’ve got to think other CFOs and CEOs are saying, what should we be doing?”

What company is next?

Mike Novogratz and other prominent industry players are pretty much confident that more companies will follow Tesla, with Apple being at the top list. RBC Capital Markets thinks that the tech giant will be the next big company to add Bitcoin to its Balance sheet. They also think that Apple will debut their own digital currency exchange and wallet. 

Read more: Cryptopolitan

• Bitcoin spikes to $47,450 for the first time after closing the day above $40,000.
• The technical breakout eyes $53,620, suggesting that the top is nowhere near.
• BTC’s list resistance path is still on the upside as projected by the MACD.

Bitcoin resumed the uptrend on Monday after confirming support at $38,000. Closing the day above $40,000 also encouraged more buyers to join the market. The flagship cryptocurrency broke past the previous all-time high at $42,000, pushing the bullish leg above $45,000.

The rally was unstoppable towards $50,000 but Bitcoin stalled slightly above $47,000. At the time of writing, the bellwether cryptocurrency is trading at $45,780 after making a minor retreat from the new record highs at $47,450.

Short-term analysis on the 4-hour chart suggests that Bitcoin’s list resistance path is still upwards. For instance, the upward trend has been reinforced by the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD). The technical indicator is moving higher above the midline at the same time the MACD line (blue) shows that Bitcoin is still in a buy zone.

At the same time, an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern has formed on the same 4-hour chart. This pattern is bullish and currently suggests that Bitcoin has some distance to cover before hitting the target at $53,620.

Therefore, trading above $45,000 will be a bullish signal for investors to hold onto their bags while anticipating a breakout above $50,000. Moreover, it has been found that only 11% of the entire Bitcoin supply is available for trading. In other words, demand is currently high amid constricted supply. Thus, the pioneer cryptocurrency could continue to rally in the near term.

Note that, a correction will come into the picture if Bitcoin closes the day under $45,000. The trend reversal could go as far as $38,000 in search of formidable support. However, subtle buyer congestions at $43,000 and $40,000 will absorb the selling pressure, preventing a sharp price drop.

Bitcoin intraday levels

Spot rate: $46,175

Relative change: -290

Percentage change: -0.6%

Trend: Bearish

Volatility: High

Read more: CoinGape

The amount of Bitcoin physically available to buy is continuing to fall as nobody really wants to sell at the moment, despite a new all-time high of $47,600.

Recent research by on-chain analytics provider Glassnode has revealed that Bitcoin’s liquid supply is continuing to decrease as investors progressively acquire and hodl the asset for the long term.

The findings indicate that there is currently around 78% of issued Bitcoin are either lost or being hodled. It added that this leaves less than 4 million BTC to be shared amongst future market entrants including large institutional investors such as PayPal, Square, S&P500 companies, ETFs, and the like.

Where is the Bitcoin Going?

The recent surge in BTC price may have been driven by retail traders as social sentiment on Twitter has hit record highs following the Tesla announcement that the firm bought $1.5 billion worth in January.

Grayscale also continues to add to its Bitcoin Trust and its most recent tweet suggests that assets under management for the institutional investment firm are at a record high of over $33 billion.

The Bitcoin Trust still contains the lion’s share of all Grayscale investments with 82% of the total AUM.

Crypto asset manager CoinShares confirmed that BTC investment product trading volumes remain high, averaging $670 million per day last week, representing 5.4% of total Bitcoin trading volumes.

Analyst Willy Woo stated that the big players have been adding to their stashes

“Whales have been adding to their balances throughout this dip, and new whales continue to be birthed. This shows that new coins have been bought by strong hands.”

On Feb. 5, CryptoPotato reported that the number of Bitcoin whales holding more than a thousand coins has increased by more than 200 since the start of 2021.

Bitcoin Price All-Time High

At the time of press, Bitcoin was trading at $47,600, a new all-time high eclipsing the one hit a few hours ago during early trading in Asia on Tuesday morning.

Read more: CryptoPotato

Bitcoin gets the rocket fuel as BTC smashes past $42,600 levels upon Tesla announcing its $1.5 Billion Bitcoin purchase. After fueling the DOGE rally over the weekend, its Elon Musk once again that has taken the Bitcoin community by storm.

The world’s richest man has endorsed Bitcoin quite a few times over the last few weeks. A week back, Elon Musk also changed his Twitter handle to #bitcoin raising speculation of his entry into Bitcoin.

In its recent SEC filing, Tesla has disclosed its latest Bitcoin purchase. The filing states:

“In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term”.

The Bitcoin Price is 9.84% high as of writing this story trading at $42,938 levels with a market cap of $791 billion. Tesla’s entry into Bitcoin space has helped to break the resistance ceiling of the previous ATH and once again enter into the price discovery mode.

Tesla to Accept Bitcoin Payments on Car Purchases
The great news is that in addition to adding Bitcoin to its reserves, Tesla is also planning to accept payments in BTC against its car sales. The filing states:

Read more: CoinGape